Public Office Is a Public Trust—Not an Audition for K Street
There's a reason "drain the swamp" lands with almost everyone. People sense, correctly, that too many go to Washington to serve the public and end up serving themselves—turning a seat in Congress or a top agency job into a launching pad for a far richer career selling access back to the government they just left. That's the "revolving door," and it poisons trust in everything else.
This doesn't take a constitutional amendment—it's a bill Congress could pass tomorrow. And it isn't a shot at one party: both walk through the door at nearly identical rates. Our bill closes it in every direction, narrowly and fairly, without touching anyone's right to petition their government.
We'll be straight about the hard part, because we always try to be. The First Amendment protects the right to petition the government, and lobbying is a form of that right. We take it seriously—which is exactly why this bill restricts paid representation by a narrow set of former insiders, uses cooling-off periods and targeted bans rather than gagging anyone's personal speech, and is written to be narrowly tailored. Every citizen, former officials included, keeps the full right to speak, write, and advocate on their own behalf, for free. What ends is selling privileged access for a fee.
We're also careful with the definition of "strategic advice" so it catches the dodgers without sweeping in ordinary lawyers and consultants—and we keep the scope reasonable so we don't scare good people out of public service in the first place.
This is a discussion draft prepared for review by legislative counsel and for presentation to Members of Congress—proposed statutory language, not final legislative text. The authors are not attorneys.
Read the full bill, share it, and—most importantly—send it to your Representative. All three are formatted Word documents you can print or attach to an email.
This is a bill, so it can pass Congress and be signed into law—no state ratification required. The people to contact are your U.S. Representative and your two U.S. Senators. Not sure who they are?
A short, specific message from a constituent carries real weight—far more than a mass-produced form letter. Personal calls to a district office count even more.
Here's a letter you can use as a starting point. Make it your own—add a sentence about why this bothers you. Fill in the bracketed pieces, then paste it into your Representative's contact form or print and mail it.
Consider attaching the one-page summary or the full bill text (above) so your Representative's office has the actual language in hand.
Almost nobody will stand up in public and defend the idea that a Senator should be able to retire on Friday and lobby their old committee on Monday, or that an ex-official should get rich representing a foreign government. This is one of the most bipartisan instincts in the country—the opposition isn't the public, it's the small group being asked to give up an advantage.