Sponsors (109)
Official title: To protect our democracy by preventing abuses of Presidential power, restoring checks and balances and accountability and transparency in government, and defending elections against foreign interference, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 14, 2026 by Jamie Ben Raskin · Last progress May 14, 2026
The bill substantially increases transparency, ethics enforcement, and whistleblower/oversight tools to curb corruption and foreign influence, but does so at the cost of added compliance costs, potential chilling effects on speech and public service, and heightened legal and operational uncertainty for the executive branch.
All Americans (taxpayers and the public) gain much greater transparency into executive and campaign activity because pardons, DOJ OLC opinions, emergency authority uses, inaugural and campaign donations, political ad records, and White House visitor logs must be reported or published.
Presidents, senior officials, campaigns, and donors face stronger anti‑corruption and conflict‑of‑interest rules (new bribery offense for pardons, tighter emoluments reporting/enforcement, limits on foreign/non‑individual inaugural donations, Hatch Act expansions, and bans on appointing certain convicted corporate offenders), reducing opportunities for improper influence.
Federal employees, contractors, and intelligence community whistleblowers gain expanded protections and faster remedies (broader coverage of protected disclosures, confidentiality safeguards, expedited OSC/IG/MSPB processes, make‑whole relief, and stronger OIG/CIGIE review paths).
Presidents, executive branch officials, DOJ, and taxpayers face substantial legal uncertainty and separation‑of‑powers litigation because the bill requires broad disclosure of grand jury/OLC materials, tolls limitations on past officials, and limits self‑pardon arguments.
Campaigns, political committees, nonprofits, platforms, agencies, and vendors will incur significant new administrative and compliance costs from accelerated disclosure deadlines, expanded reporting/retention requirements, public hosting of materials, audits, and visitor‑log maintenance.
Expanded criminal and civil exposures, broad definitions of prohibited payments/‘things of value,’ retroactive tolling, and higher fines risk chilling public service, candidate participation, donor activity, consulting work, and ordinary political speech.
Based on analysis of 11 sections of legislative text.
Strengthens congressional oversight by requiring DOJ disclosure after pardons, enabling subpoena enforcement suits, tightening campaign finance/foreign-contact disclosure rules, expanding Hatch Act penalties, and increasing EOP and whistleblower protections.
Requires broad new transparency, reporting, and enforcement rules to strengthen congressional oversight and limit executive abuses. Key changes include automatic DOJ disclosure to Congress after certain pardons, a new civil cause of action to enforce congressional subpoenas, stricter campaign finance and foreign-contact disclosure rules, criminal penalties for Hatch Act violations, expanded whistleblower protections, limits on presidential emergency powers, enhanced oversight of the Executive Office of the President, and limits on moving federal employees between competitive and excepted service.