There is a quiet, insidious transition taking place in American life — one that we cannot allow to take hold. It is the shifting of our foundational bedrock from the rule of law — where rules are predictable, public, and applied equally (imperfect as it may be) — to the rule of ONE man, where survival requires anticipating the whims, moods, and personal vendettas of the executive branch.

When a republic shifts from institutional governance to personalized rule, the primary currency becomes fealty, and the primary deterrent becomes fear. Two seemingly unrelated stories from the past week — one involving a stalwart conservative legal nonprofit, the other a cutting-edge artificial intelligence startup — reveal exactly how this chilling effect operates in practice.

Winning in Court, Losing in Business

Consider the Liberty Justice Center (LJC), a nonprofit with a sterling conservative pedigree known for fighting public-sector unions and challenging university DEI policies. Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but the group’s commitment to its principles was on fully display when it won the biggest victory in its 15-year history: a Supreme Court ruling that struck down President Trump’s global tariffs, ruling against unbridled presidential power and opening the door for businesses to reclaim billions in unconstitutionally collected funds.

By all traditional metrics of American civic life, this was a triumph for the constitutional separation of powers. But in the current political climate, it was treated as a corporate liability.

• The LJC lost over 30% of its donor base simply for taking the case, as conservative benefactors fled the controversy of challenging the administration.

• Major corporations like Costco, which stood to benefit immensely from the multi-billion-dollar tariff refunds, explicitly refused to donate to or support the litigation.

Instead of fighting for their constitutional rights, major companies have largely taken a conciliatory path: rolling back “controversial” initiatives, avoiding legal challenges, and even donating to pet projects like the new White House ballroom. When big business decides that building a ballroom for the President is a safer bet than defending the law in court, the rule of law is on the ropes as some seek to replace it with a system of transactional appeasement.

“Bullying Based on Bad Vibes”

If the corporate world is being coerced into silence through financial anxiety, the tech sector is learning what happens when you dare to push back.

Anthropic, an artificial intelligence startup, recently found itself in the administration’s crosshairs. The company had previously clashed with the Pentagon over a $200 million defense contract, leading Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to retaliate by labeling the domestic firm a “supply chain risk” — a devastating national security designation never before used against an American company. Anthropic responded by doing what citizens in a free republic are supposed to do: they sued the government.

The administration’s retaliation was swift and arbitrary. Recently, executives at Anthropic received a sudden White House directive: they had less than 90 minutes to pull their latest AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, off the market.

“Are we being bullied based on bad vibes?” one Anthropic employee asked in an internal chat. “At what point does this just feel like they don’t want us to exist?”

The justification for the shutdown was entirely inconsistent. The White House cited vague national security flaws based on a single, preliminary paper from Amazon — yet cybersecurity experts note that rival models from companies like OpenAI possess the exact same capabilities but face no such restrictions. Over 150 top cybersecurity experts have signed an open letter calling the administration’s abrupt restrictions unfair, pointing out that Anthropic’s safety guardrails were actually incredibly robust.

When the state can give a successful American company a 90-minute ultimatum to destroy its product line without offering concrete evidence, clear guidelines, or due process, it is no longer exercising governance. It is exercising raw, personalized power.

A Republic of Apprehension

When you lay these two cases side-by-side, a deeply disturbing architecture of modern authoritarianism emerges. You do not need to throw political dissidents into prison to break a republic; you merely need to make the cost of principle too high to bear.

When law firms are blacklisted for taking on government cases, when nonprofits are defunded for winning in the Supreme Court, and when tech companies are knee-capped by 90-minute administrative ultimatums after suing the Pentagon, the message sent to the country is loud and clear: The law will not protect you from the President.

This is how the rule of law erodes. It dies when regular citizens, massive corporations, and brilliant innovators look at a constitutional violation and decide it is safer to stay quiet, bow their heads, and hope they aren’t noticed.

If we want a Bright America, we must remember that the Constitution was designed explicitly to protect us from the whims of a single ruler. If we allow the administration to turn the legal and regulatory systems into a personal weapon of retribution, we lose the very thing that made our economy and our nation great in the first place. The rule of law must belong to all of us — or eventually, it will belong to no one.

BY OLIVIA TROYE

I own two soccer jerseys.

A green one. A blue one.

Some people find that complicated. I don’t, because both of them are stitched together with something that has nothing to do with borders or politics. They’re made of memory. Of family. Of what it means to belong somewhere.

Growing up, soccer was the language my mom’s side spoke when they wanted to feel whole. My uncles, my cousins, crammed around whatever TV had the best signal, switching between Spanish and English depending on the moment, depending on the emotion. Nobody code-switched for soccer. You just felt it.

El Tri was the team. Still is, for that part of me.

I don’t think people fully understand what it means to cheer for Mexico when you’re American. It’s not a political statement. It’s not confused loyalty. It’s memory. And, it’s the smell of my mamagrande’s (grandma’s) kitchen during a World Cup match. It’s my uncle losing his mind over a goal like it personally vindicated every hard year he’d ever had. It’s learning what it means to want something badly, to invest yourself completely in something that might break your heart, and to do it anyway, every four years, with the people you love.

That’s not divided loyalty. That’s inheritance.

And then there’s the USMNT (U.S. Men’s National Team), the team I watch as an American, full stop. I root for this program with real investment. Frustrated by the missteps, genuinely excited about where this generation is headed. The talent is real. The potential is there. And with a World Cup coming to this very soil, the pressure and the opportunity are both enormous.

And then I went to Miami.

I recently sat across from business owners, community leaders, hospitality workers, people who have built something in their cities, who have poured themselves into their neighborhoods, who serve people every single day. And what I heard wasn’t just excitement about the economic windfall coming this year from being a World Cup host city — it was something more complicated than that.

It was a question, really.

Will we be ready? Will everyone feel welcome here?

Five million visitors. Eleven host cities. A global audience of five billion. The 2026 FIFA World Cup isn’t just the largest sporting event in the history of North America, it’s a referendum on who we are as a country right now. On whether we can look the world in the eye and mean it when we say “welcome.”

That question hit me differently than it might have hit someone else in the room.

Because I know what it feels like to show up somewhere and wonder if you belong. I’ve lived in the space between identities my whole life, professionally, personally, politically. I’ve been in rooms where people looked at me and made assumptions. I’ve also been in rooms where someone made an extra effort, asked a genuine question, made space, and the difference between those two experiences is everything.

That’s what Welcome Standard is about.

It’s a voluntary pledge for hospitality businesses — restaurants, hotels, bars, retailers — in World Cup host cities. A commitment to a warm welcome, a safe environment, inclusive service, and community pride. It’s not a mandate from the government. It’s not a corporate PR campaign. It’s a coalition of owners and operators saying: when the world walks through our door, we want them to feel how warmly welcomed they are.

The business case is real. Hotels in host cities are forecasting revenue lifts of up to 25% during the tournament, and the multiplier effects for restaurants and retail are citywide. But when I talked to the people in Miami who are part of this, they weren’t leading with the revenue numbers. They were leading with something else. They were talking about their staff — many of whom are immigrants, many of whom speak multiple languages, many of whom are the communities that soccer fans from around the world will be looking for when they land in an American city and wonder if there’s a place here for them given the political climate here in the United States. They were talking about what it means to their neighborhood to be seen as a host city, not just a backdrop, but a genuine part of the story. They were talking about legacy.

That word keeps coming up when I think about 2026. Legacy.

What does it mean to host the world? What story do we tell about ourselves when 5 million people land on our shores, walk into our restaurants, take a cab through our cities, and watch matches in our stadiums? What do they bring home with them — not just memories of goals and upsets and trophies, but a feeling about us? About America?

I grew up watching soccer teach me that you can hold more than one home in your chest. That love isn’t zero-sum. That the moment a goal goes in, the eruption in the room is the same whether the chant is in Spanish or English, because joy doesn’t need a translator. This tournament has a chance to say something true about who we are. Not a sanitized, press-release version of America. The real one. Complicated, multilingual, loud, proud, argumentative, generous, and beautifully imperfect.

But that only happens if we’re intentional about it. If the businesses in host cities actually prepare, and hospitality workers feel supported and trained and seen. Will the communities that make these cities what they are get to be part of the celebration, not just the backdrop for someone else’s?

Welcome Standard is one piece of that. A practical, local, voluntary framework that gives businesses a way to show up right. To put the badge in the window and mean it. When the world arrives, and it is coming, whether we’re ready or not, it will judge us one interaction at a time. The greeter at the hotel desk. The server at the table. The shopkeeper on the corner.

My cousins and uncles taught me something about what a real welcome feels like, how it lands, and what it means to someone who traveled a long way and doesn’t know if they belong.

Let’s give the world that feeling.

To everyone already part of the Welcome Standard coalition: the restaurant owners, hotel operators, small business leaders, and community organizers who raised their hand and said “yes” — thank you! Genuinely. What you’re doing matters. The world will feel it, even if they never know your name.

And if you’re a business in a host city and you’re not yet part of this, there’s still time. Sign the pledge. Train your team. Put the badge in your window. Show the world what your city is made of. Learn more and sign up at welcomestandard.org.

This Thursday, June 11th, at 3pm ET, the kickoff match to the World Cup begins. I’ll be hosting a watch party as Mexico and South Africa faceoff, and everyone is invited. Come join me HERE. Fair warning: I will scream, I will cheer, and yes, I will probably cry. Ninety minutes of pure rollercoaster, every single time. I can’t help it. I never could. Oh, and I invited the mariachis. If I miss you in my hometown in Virginia, I will also be in Los Angeles next week. Come join me HERE. ⚽🇺🇸🇨🇦🇲🇽

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Thanks to our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a federal judge in Maine just blocked a highly coordinated, politically motivated attempt by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to build a case for mass voter purges . On May 21, 2026, the court dismissed a DOJ lawsuit against Maine's Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, which demanded access to the state's entire digital voter database — including private driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security digits . While on the surface this might look like a standard, routine data request, it was actually a sweeping overreach designed to lean into baseless "stolen election" conspiracy theories, harass state election officials, and look for any excuse to kick valid voters off the rolls . Fortunately, the court saw right through it.

The Blueprint for a Partisan Voter Purge

Why is the federal government suddenly demanding the bulk voter files of thirty different states? The answer came to light when a recent executive order directed federal agencies to compile a massive “State Citizenship List”.

The underlying motivation is clear: the administration wants to use bulk voter data as a pretext to launch sweeping voter roll purges and generate talking points to baselessly claim widespread election fraud. By forcing states to hand over these lists, the DOJ is attempting to build a centralized, federal database to “double-check” — and ultimately destabilize — how states (in which the Constitution vests election responsibility) manage their own voter lists.

This is a direct attack on state control and constitutional order. State and municipal election officials take a solemn oath to administer elections fairly, securely, and with an immense number of built-in checks and balances. Instead of being allowed to do their jobs, these public servants are being harassed and sued by a federal agency that is supposed to remain completely independent of political agendas.

The Judge Exposed the “Fishing Expedition”

In his ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Lance E. Walker did not hold back. He completely dismantled the DOJ’s arguments and pointed out exactly how backward their strategy was:

• No legal authority: The DOJ tried to use a 60-year-old civil rights law to demand the data, but the court ruled that federal law does not give federal agencies a blank check to seize digital databases built internally by state workers.

• States run the show: Federal laws like the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) explicitly leave election management and list maintenance to individual states, not the federal government.

• A backward lawsuit: Judge Walker noted that the DOJ didn’t actually allege that Maine committed any election violations. Instead, they filed a lawsuit in search of a violation, hoping to use federal court power to conduct a giant “fishing expedition” through Maine’s data.

Maine is not the only state holding the line. This ruling marks the seventh time a federal court has rejected these DOJ data-grabs, and an eighth court in Wisconsin threw out a similar lawsuit immediately after.

Standing Up to the Machine

When a weaponized federal agency targets a state, they count on their endless, taxpayer-funded budget to bully local officials into compliance. They expect states to fold because fighting the federal government in court is incredibly expensive.

Maine stood its ground because our strategic litigation partner CLC stepped up to intervene and defend the state’s authority. CLC provides the elite legal firepower needed to stop these politically motivated attacks right in their tracks.

Help Our Movement Hold the Line

When you look at what is truly at stake, the choice becomes clear. We can either watch independent local election systems get dismantled by conspiracy-driven federal overreach, or we can make sure the groups fighting back have the resources they need to win. Stopping a partisan takeover of American elections requires more than just hoping for good court rulings — it requires a well-resourced, highly professional legal shield.

By supporting this work, you directly fuel the critical lawsuits on the front lines of these battles. If you believe our elections should be run by independent local officials rather than a weaponized federal agency, please consider making a donation today to keep this defensive line strong.

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As Memorial Day closes and summer begins, something worth noticing happens across America. Neighbors meet over backyard fences. Churches and civic groups host summer camps. Flags appear in storefronts, on porches, in parades through small towns. None of this makes the news. It doesn't trend. But it matters more than most of what does.

This summer is different in scale for two unusual reasons:

• America turns 250 years old, and

• The World Cup will be hosted by 11 cities across our country.

Whether you view these as celebrations or spectacles, embedded within them is an invitation to remember something we have been quietly losing as a society for decades, and the opportunity to choose whether we rebuild it. And that something is fraternity.

The Third Leg

America’s political arguments, court battles, and even our national identity are dominated by the words (and let’s hope the ideals) of “liberty” and “equality.” But the French Revolution's third ideal, fraternité, rarely gets the same treatment. In liberal political philosophy, it has largely been reduced to sentiment: nice, but soft. Optional.

Aristotle wouldn’t agree. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he described philia as a distinct and essential bond among citizens. Not the deep friendship of close companions, and not the thin transactional relationship of strangers who share a legal system. He wrote of something in between: a relationship of reciprocal goodwill among people who share a common life, a common place, a common fate. He called it politike philia, political friendship, and he was clear that justice alone could not substitute for it. A city held together only by law is fragile. A city bound by civic friendship is resilient.

Tocqueville saw this clearly when he came to America in the 1830s. Yes, he admired the formal machinery of democracy, but he was truly astonished by the informal social machinery running beneath it. Americans joined things. They formed associations for every conceivable purpose: civic, religious, commercial, charitable, and beyond. This habit of association, Tocqueville argued, was the real foundation of American democracy. It kept individualism from collapsing into isolation.

He also issued a warning. Unbridled individualism could produce what he called "soft despotism," which is a society of atomized individuals, each isolated and equal in their smallness, presided over by a distant and paternalistic state. The citizens of such a society would not be oppressed in any dramatic sense. They would simply shrink. They would lose the habit of acting together, and with it, the capacity to govern themselves.

That warning reads as prophecy now.

What We’ve Lost

The data is startling, but won’t surprise you: Across every domain of American civic life,
from fraternal organizations to religious congregations to informal socializing, participation has been declining since roughly the 1960s. The trend has not reversed.

What has collapsed most severely is what sociologist Marc Dunkelman called the middle ring: the neighbors, colleagues, and fellow parishioners we knew well enough to argue with and still show up for. And while we have kept our inner circles of close friends and family, and expanded vast outer networks online, we’ve largely allowed the middle, where Aristotle's
civic friendship actually lives, to erode. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, whose 2023 advisory declared loneliness a public health epidemic, argued that social disconnection makes us more susceptible to manipulation and more vulnerable to those who offer the warmth of belonging in exchange for the surrender of judgment.

Hannah Arendt, the influential German-born Jewish political philosopher and historian who fled Nazi Germany as a refugee, put it into even starker terms. Totalitarianism, she argued, is only possible in atomized societies, places where intermediate associations have been destroyed and citizens have fully retreated into private life. The private person, withdrawn from public life, is not a free person. She is simply an unorganized one. When public life contracts, the space that remains does not stay empty.

The Summer Ahead

This is the context in which I am approaching the summer of 2026.

We began with the conviction that rule of law alone will not save us from democratic decay. Courts and constitutions matter. The litigation work our strategic partner Campaign Legal Center does across the country to preserve our freedoms matters enormously. But legal infrastructure, at its most effective, requires civic infrastructure beneath it. An educated, engaged, connected citizenry cannot replace the rule of law, and vice versa. Ideally, in a healthy society, they’re complementary.

The ancient Greeks understood this. The original Olympic Games were civic events, moments when city-states set aside their conflicts, traveled together, competed together, and returned home with a refreshed sense of shared identity. The World Cup is one of the rare events large enough to create genuine shared experience across communities that rarely intersect. This summer, in the host cities, we have been working with civic partners to launch the Welcome Standard, which is a pledge by businesses to welcome ALL visitors, regardless of race, religion, or country of origin.

A business that takes the pledge makes a public declaration about who it is. It joins a community of businesses that have made the same declaration. It builds the kind of horizontal bond among local institutions that Tocqueville called the genius of American association. Good hospitality is good business. It is also an act of civic friendship, an extension of goodwill to strangers, and a recognition that visitors deserve to be treated as guests.

An Invitation

This summer is larger than any one event or program.

The 250th anniversary of American independence is a moment for honesty about what the experiment requires of us, not just the formal requirements of citizenship, but the relational ones. The Constitution can guarantee rights. It cannot guarantee the relationships that make
rights meaningful in practice.

Those relationships are built at a neighborhood barbecue. At a school play. At a church summer camp. At a block party where you meet the person three houses down who you have passed a hundred times without speaking. These are not small things. They are, as Aristotle insisted and Tocqueville confirmed and Putnam documented and Arendt understood, the bedrock of self-government.

Pope Leo XIV, in his recent reflections on artificial intelligence and human society, raised a concern that echoes across centuries of political philosophy. How does technology, which so often deepens our isolation and impacts our happiness, affect our capacity for the kind of shared life that free societies require?

The answer is not to reject modernity. It is to be deliberate about what we build alongside it.

This summer, consider how you build community that lasts. Host the barbecue. Go to the parade. Join something. Show up for something that is not optimized for your preferences. Sit next to a stranger at a World Cup watch party and find out where they are from. These gestures are not trivial. What we call “small talk” is only small if we don’t recognize its cumulative effect, which is rebuilding the third leg of the stool.

Because we really do need Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. It has been our superpower, and still can be.

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BY TREVOR POTTER

During a more than 40-year career holding positions such as Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chairman and president of Campaign Legal Center, the professional role that has always elicited the most interest from friends, colleagues and even total strangers is “Stephen Colbert’s super PAC lawyer.” I would not be surprised if it ended up on my tombstone!

It all began about 15 years ago, when I received a phone call out of the blue, setting in motion the chain of events that would lead me to assume that unexpected and unusual role.

On the line was a staffer from “The Colbert Report,” asking me questions about what a federal PAC was and what rules governed them. Not long afterwards, I found myself sitting across from Colbert himself in front of a studio audience for the first of what would turn out to be eleven episodes aimed at helping his audience understand what was happening to our campaign finance system in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United ruling.

During these episodes, which coincided with the 2012 election cycle, I served as Stephen’s lawyer and “favorite straight man” on set, witnessing his skillful use of comedy to shine a light on the legal loopholes that special interests use to spend secret and unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections. The series earned Stephen the prestigious Peabody Award for journalism. One survey later found that Colbert Report viewers were better educated on the issue of money in politics than those who relied on traditional news programs!

I recently sat down to remember and reflect on this unique experience, which also included the two of us going to the FEC to plead Stephen’s case for official approval of establishing his PAC, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.”

Now, the Colbert Report is long gone, and Stephen is preparing to end a very successful run of more than ten years as host of “The Late Show” on CBS. The world moves on — both the good and the bad. The systemic weaknesses in campaign finance law we explored together in satirical fashion 15 years ago are being exploited today at levels never seen before. Consider, for example, that dark money groups spent $1.4 billion dollars during the 2024 election cycle — nearly four times the amount spent during the 2012 cycle. Over time, the proportion of dark money going to super PACs has greatly increased, adding to the lack of transparency and opportunities for corruption that have profoundly changed our political process for the worse.

Furthermore, things at the FEC have also gone from bad to worse since “The Colbert Report” series. In the intervening years, the commission has been mired in gridlock, failing to make any progress on important issues. More recently, a majority of FEC commissioners have voted in favor of campaign finance deregulation and have declined to enforce campaign finance laws at an alarming rate.

One key storyline during the Colbert series was explaining how easy it is for super PACs to get around requirements to operate independently of candidates for political office. In spring 2024, the FEC poured gasoline on this fire of unchecked coordination by wrongly concluding it was legal for candidates and supportive “independent” groups to work together on canvassing activities like door-knocking and voter mobilization.

This “advisory opinion,” as it is known in agency speak, opened the floodgates for an unprecedented level of coordination, with Elon Musk’s super PAC alone spending hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Donald Trump’s campaign. Campaign Legal Center has filed a lawsuit to get the advisory opinion struck down in court, arguing that it was contrary to law and exceeded the agency’s authority.

At its core, the opinion allows super PACs and other supposed “independent” organizations to spend millions effectively underwriting campaign expenses for the candidates they support, with much of that spending going undisclosed.

As I reflect on everything that has happened in our country since my time on “The Colbert Report,” it is impossible to ignore the contributions of the highest court in the land to what can fairly be described as the steady decline of democracy in the United States.

The negative consequences of Citizens United are well known, but the Court may not be finished with its hack job on our campaign finance laws. At CLC, we are anticipating a ruling soon in National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) v. FEC, in which the NRSC has asked the Court to nullify limits in place for the last 50 years, which it previously upheld, on how much money political parties can spend in coordination with federal candidates. Such a ruling would create yet another avenue for wealthy special interests to exert a corrupting influence on our elections.

Then there’s the Roberts-led Court rulings that have destroyed the federal Voting Rights Act, starting with Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 and ending with Louisiana v. Callais on April 29 of this year. These rulings, grounded in the false notion that systemic racism in our elections has been brought to heel, have opened the door for the kind of discrimination in voting laws and practices our country has not seen since the days of Jim Crow.

In 2019, the majority, once again led by Chief Justice Roberts, issued an outrageous opinion that closed the federal courts to those challenging egregious partisan gerrymanders. This ruling, in combination with Callais, threatens the fundamental principle of “one person, one vote,” which holds that all votes should count equally in our representative democracy, because it allows states to hide discrimination behind claims of partisan gerrymandering to avoid court review.

This is to say nothing of several rulings that have made it much more difficult to hold corrupt government officials accountable and a truly shocking 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States holding that the president of the United States is immune from being held to account for illegal activity if he was acting in his “official capacity.”

Campaign Legal Center’s role in this battle for the soul of our democracy is to find pathways to progress through legal actions and policy advocacy. It has been a difficult road. But in the areas of voting rights, redistricting, ethics and even campaign finance, we have achieved significant victories for voters in the face of determined opposition.

Just as important in this struggle, I recognize, are the efforts of those with massive audiences to help Americans understand the forces pushing our nation towards something that bears little resemblance to a representative democracy.

Stephen Colbert is clearly someone who feels called to use his platform to engage in this sort of civic education, reaching Americans who are not immersed in these issues. I wish Stephen all the best in whatever comes next, and hope that he and others in the entertainment industry will keep finding creative ways to ensure Americans remain informed and active in the fight for a more perfect union.

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Looking for more in-depth insights on issues critical to our democracy? Consider subscribing to the “From the Desk of Trevor Potter” newsletter, written by Campaign Legal Center’s founder and president, Trevor Potter. Get expert analysis and learn more about Campaign Legal Center’s efforts to protect and strengthen democracy for all Americans by subscribing via email or on LinkedIn.

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When Donald Trump first burst onto the political scene, his most resonant battle cry was a promise to “drain the swamp,” a phrase that resonated with tens of millions of people, even those who may not have supported him.

But fast-forward to May 2026, and it’s become clearer than ever that (surprise!) he didn’t drain the swamp — he bought the real estate, built a luxury resort on it, and started charging the American taxpayer admission.

This blatant, out-in-the-open monetization of the presidency is precisely why we are seeing a massive erosion in his support. The corruption is no longer a matter of partisan debate or speculative reporting; it is now laid bare in official government filings and brazen backdoor legal maneuvers. If anyone in your life still needs definitive proof that the presidency is being treated as a private equity firm, please share this with them.

Part I: The 113-Page Roadmap to Insider Trading

Just days ago, Trump filed an official government ethics disclosure known as Form 278-T, a Periodic Transaction Report. Though he filed it months late and was forced to pay late fees, the document provides an unprecedented look at how official policy is being leveraged for private profit.

The form catalogs over 3,600 individual stock trades made during the first quarter of this year alone, totaling an estimated value of up to $750 million in personal trading volume. A close look at the timing reveals a pattern of a sitting president actively trading securities in companies directly affected by his own immediate policy decisions:

• Nvidia: Trump bought millions of dollars in Nvidia stock right around the time he agreed to reverse U.S. national security restrictions on selling advanced AI chips to China. Days later, he flew Nvidia’s CEO to China on Air Force One, cleared 10 Chinese firms to buy the chips, and watched the stock price climb 26%.

• Boeing: After purchasing millions in Boeing stock, Trump brought Boeing’s CEO on that same official trip to China, directly securing a deal to sell 200 airplanes to the Chinese government.

• TikTok: Trump heavily invested in Oracle at the exact same time he personally brokered their highly controversial deal to acquire TikTok.

• Defense and Crypto: He bought into Palantir while they actively competed for billions in government contracts, and snatched up crypto stocks while publicly championing the so-called “Clarity Act” — a bill the crypto industry is heavily lobbying for.

• Micro-Trading the News: In January, during a severe national egg shortage, Trump bought into Cal-Maine Foods (the nation’s largest egg producer) and sold it for a massive profit two months later. In February, he bought millions in Dell stock and immediately used his platform to tell the public to “go out and buy a Dell,” sending the stock surging 24%.

Historically, modern presidents have utilized independent blind trusts or liquidated their assets to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Trump has completely shattered this norm, reportedly telling critics:

“I found out that nobody cared, and I’m allowed to.”

As a result, Forbes estimates his net worth has surged 60% since he returned to office, now sitting at $6.3 billion.

Part II: The $1.8 Billion Treasury Heist

If using the executive office to game the stock market wasn’t enough, we just witnessed what can only be described as a coordinated raid on the U.S. Treasury.

Earlier this year, Trump filed a legally baseless, $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS — an agency that he, as head of the Executive Branch, completely controls. It was a farce from the start: a president suing his own government so he could effectively negotiate a multi-billion-dollar settlement with himself. We warned you about it here:

When a judge-appointed team of independent legal experts reviewed the case and concluded it was absolute nonsense that should be thrown out of court, Trump’s team didn’t wait for the hammer to fall. They voluntarily dropped the suit because they had already engineered a backdoor settlement with the Justice Department, which doesn’t require judicial approval.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the creation of a $1.776 (🙄) billion “anti-weaponization” fund carved directly out of taxpayer money. Disguised as a fund to compensate “victims of lawfare,” this is a massive, unchecked slush fund. It will be run by five political loyalists appointed by the Attorney General and removable by the president. They will have total, unilateral discretion to hand out our tax dollars to Trump and his political allies with:

• Zero court oversight

• Zero public transparency

• Zero legal accountability

As a matter of law, the Attorney General has a fiduciary duty to protect taxpayer money from fraudulent claims. Instead, the highest law enforcement officers in the country have entered into a structural conspiracy to treat the U.S. Treasury like a campaign piggy bank.

Part III: The Turning Tide and How We Fight Back

The sheer, unapologetic audacity of this self-dealing is exactly why the ground is shifting beneath Trump’s feet. Everyday Americans are realizing that treating national policy like a series of personal business transactions is the textbook definition of corruption — and the opposite of what he promised to do.

Watchdogs have sprung into action, filing amicus briefs and demanding absolute transparency. But to fix a system this compromised, we need structural guardrails.

Let's ACTUALLY Drain the Swamp

We must flood the phone lines of our elected representatives and demand immediate legislative action:

1. Pass the Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act: This bill would permanently block a sitting President, Vice President, and their immediate families from collecting any settlement payouts from the United States government.

2. Enact a Total Stock Trading Ban: We must support a bipartisan expansion of congressional trading bans to explicitly include the President and Vice President, making it illegal to trade individual securities while in office.

3. Restore the Office of Government Ethics (OGE): We must codify strict independence and subpoena power for the OGE so that a president cannot simply fire its director and install political loyalists to erase late fees and ignore conflicts.

The swamp wasn’t drained; it was weaponized for profit. Share this information, sound the alarm with your neighbors, and call your representatives today. The U.S. Treasury belongs to the American people, not the president’s personal portfolio.

And that shouldn’t be considered a conservative or a progressive belief — but an All-American one.

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This is a battle for the very soul of representation in Florida. They are redrawing the lines again, and this time, they aren’t even pretending to follow the rules.

At Bright America, we believe that when the drawing of maps moves into backrooms and “closed doors,” democracy begins to flicker. Our job is to keep the lights on. Today, we’re breaking down a high-stakes legal challenge to Florida’s latest congressional map — led by our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC).

The 2026 “Partisan National Redistricting War”

We are currently witnessing what legal experts call an “unprecedented mid-decade race to the bottom.” Across the country, states are shredding their established maps to grab more power ahead of the 2026 midterms. Florida has just taken the lead in that race.

In April 2026, the Florida Legislature “rammed” through a new map — the 2026 Plan — in just two days. This wasn’t a standard update; it was a surgical strike designed to create four new Republican districts at the expense of Florida’s voters.

The most alarming parts of the 2026 Plan:

Constitutional Defiance: Governor DeSantis extraordinarily unilaterally declared that Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment (FDA) — which voters passed in 2010 to stop gerrymandering — is unconstitutional.

Admitted Partisanship: The map drawer from the Governor’s office admitted under oath that he used partisan data to draw every single district in the 2026 Plan.

Silencing Cities: The new map fractures Tampa and Orlando into three separate districts each, specifically designed to “crack” and “pack” voters to ensure a dominant partisan advantage.

The Legal Shield for Florida Voters

On May 4, 2026, Campaign Legal Center (CLC), filed a 39-page complaint (Thompson-Wynn v. Byrd) on behalf of individual Florida voters to stop this map in its tracks.

CLC is holding the line for the Fair Districts Amendment. Passed by 62.9% of Florida voters in 2010, this amendment explicitly states: “No apportionment plan or district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent”.

By challenging the 2026 Plan, CLC is fighting to ensure the August primaries and November midterms aren’t decided before a single ballot is cast.

Help Fuel the Case!

Fueling the Citizen Response

If CLC provides the legal expertise, Bright America provides the civic fuel. Litigation can feel distant and abstract, buried under hundreds of pages of filings. We are here to bring those facts to your doorstep.

Our Role in This Fight:

Transparency in Real-Time: While the 2026 Plan was drawn in a “secretive process” over just two weeks, we’re here to show you exactly how it impacts our country and your freedoms.

Translating the Tactics: We explain the surgical methods that were used to dilute your voting power and crack communities apart.

Mobilizing Awareness: We believe a well-informed electorate is a politician’s greatest fear. By helping you understand the Thompson-Wynn v. Byrd case, we empower you to speak up before the map becomes permanent.

What’s Next?

Democracy is not a spectator sport. CLC is doing the heavy lifting in the courtroom, but they need a public that understands the stakes.

We’ll be following this litigation every step of the way as we head toward the 2026 elections. This map was built to favor incumbents and political parties; we are here to ensure it honors the voters instead.

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For more than a decade, legal experts and court watchers have been predicting the demise of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) at the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts, but foresight does not make the reality of what happened in the final days of April any easier to absorb. A 6-3 majority handed down an utterly disastrous and disingenuous ruling on April 29 in Louisiana v. Callais. In the hours following this ruling, Campaign Legal Center Senior Vice President — and noted voting rights attorney — Bruce V. Spiva, released a powerful statement condemning the majority’s decision.

The case that produced the Callais ruling centered on Louisiana’s congressional map, where, in 2024, Black Louisianans, who make up a third of the state’s population, were able to elect two representatives of their choice for the first time in history. Louisiana has six members of Congress. The map that enabled this was put in place after a successful legal challenge under Section 2 of the VRA.

The majority’s ruling overturning this fair map (which CLC argued against in two amicus briefs) has broad implications that could produce the largest drop in Black representation in Congress our nation has ever witnessed.

Before Callais, the bar for successfully challenging racial vote dilution — the legal term for implementing racially discriminatory voting maps — was substantial but achievable to remedy egregious violations. Now, while Section 2 still technically exists on paper, it is a “dead letter,” as Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent.

The Supreme Court has, in essence, rewritten a law passed by Congress in 1982, which explicitly added a results-based test to the VRA for proving that maps are discriminatory. But according to the Callais ruling, proving that a map results in racial discrimination is no longer sufficient. Instead, plaintiffs must essentially demonstrate that the sole intent behind the creation of a new voting map is to diminish representation for historically disenfranchised communities.

We are already seeing several southern states attempting to manipulate their voting maps in ways that would make it much more difficult for communities of color to elect representatives of their choice — an unconscionable turning back of the clock to an era where no laws existed to enforce the intent of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. There is every reason to believe that this is just the beginning.

What does this all mean in the short term?

With the doors to federal courts now all but shut for challenging racially discriminatory maps under the VRA, and an outrageous Supreme Court ruling from 2016 saying federal courts are powerless to settle partisan gerrymandering disputes (Rucho v. Common Cause), the redistricting race to the bottom that began last summer is likely to accelerate.

This does not mean, however, that every attempt to gerrymander congressional and legislative district maps is insulated from legal challenges.

Just days after the Callais decision, Campaign Legal Center filed a lawsuit in state court on behalf of Florida voters to block a new ultra-gerrymandered congressional map. Florida happens to be one of eight places where the state constitution forbids partisan gerrymandering.

Voters amended the Florida constitution in 2010 through a ballot initiative, adding the following provision: “No apportionment plan or district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent.” Yet the entire process of adopting Florida’s new map has openly and explicitly been directed at increasing the number of seats for one party.

The Callais ruling has no practical impact on states that have anti-partisan gerrymandering provisions in their constitutions. Campaign Legal Center has pursued multiple legal challenges to gerrymandering on state constitutional grounds. These efforts produced a fair congressional map last year for voters in Utah, and our challenge to a mid-decade gerrymander in Missouri is ongoing.

We also believe that it is illegal for states to use Callais as a justification for suspending elections before the 2026 midterms. The governor and secretary of state of Louisiana are testing the legal limits of this commonsense principle by invoking emergency powers to cancel the ongoing primary election there, even though some ballots have already been cast! Civil rights groups mobilized immediately to challenge this move in court. States that attempt to do the same can certainly expect broad opposition from the pro-democracy coalition.

While the Supreme Court has granted Louisiana’s request to expedite its order to allow it to draw new maps, the Supreme Court’s decision in Callais does not justify Louisiana’s extreme actions here. Callais did not include an order for Louisiana, or any other states, to act on its ruling now. Rather, the Supreme Court’s longstanding position has been that federal court rulings cannot disrupt election planning, even many months before ballots are cast.

Powerful solutions to counter Callais.

The Supreme Court’s ruling should be a clarion call to Congress and state lawmakers to use every tool available to preserve our multiracial democracy.

Callais presents two paths for our nation to choose on the issue of redistricting. One leads to a continuation of the race to the bottom we’ve seen over the last year, where voters are treated like pawns in a battle for political power. The other leads to meaningful reform that could remake our politics into something more responsive to all Americans. The second path requires elected officials from across the political spectrum to work together on behalf of all voters.

Help Fuel the Solutions

In the PARTISAN gerrymandering context, this de-escalation could be achieved through federal legislation establishing nonpartisan criteria that must be used to create fair congressional district maps in every state. Importantly, this remedy is completely within the power of Congress under the elections clause of the U.S. Constitution — no permission from the Supreme Court required. Such federal legislation would outlaw partisan gerrymandering nationwide and again empower federal courts to hear challenges to partisan maps.

It is also vital for states to pursue solutions that can blunt the impact of Callais and previous harmful rulings like Shelby County v. Holder (2013) on our multi-racial democracy. Nine states, thus far, have risen to the occasion by enacting state Voting Rights Acts. These laws, the most recent of which passed in Maryland, give voters the power to challenge discrimination in voting laws and practices on the local level. This is significant, considering that a large majority of federal voting rights cases over the decades have targeted discriminatory laws in counties and cities.

A seismic event like Callais also requires serious consideration of useful structural changes to our democracy. The Court’s decision exacerbates the flaws in our current system for electing members of the House of Representatives, where single-member districts and winner-take-all elections limit opportunities for true representation.

Many other democracies around the world and even some local governments in this country have moved beyond winner-take-all in favor of proportional representation, which, in its most basic form, means seats are divided according to the percentage of votes each party receives. This system, which would involve the creation of multi-member congressional districts (which existed in the United States for many years), has the potential to overcome the anti-democratic effects of both racial and partisan gerrymandering.

The existence of these and other possible solutions in a post-Callais world means the fight for a truly representative democracy must continue. Six justices on the Supreme Court have dealt a serious blow to this effort, but they have not erased the spirit that inspired the Civil Rights Movement generations ago.

That spirit lives on in the work of Campaign Legal Center and our many allies who understand that the fight for a stronger, fairer, more inclusive American democracy requires constant vigilance and dedication. We are committed to using every tool at our disposal to fight for fair representation and protect every American’s freedom to participate meaningfully in the democratic process.

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Looking for more in-depth insights on issues critical to our democracy? Consider subscribing to the “From the Desk of Trevor Potter” newsletter, written by Campaign Legal Center’s founder and president, Trevor Potter. Get expert analysis and learn more about Campaign Legal Center’s efforts to protect and strengthen democracy for all Americans by subscribing via email or on LinkedIn.

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Six decades ago, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 transformed American democracy from a theoretical ideal into a functional reality.

It did not arrive as a gift. It was a hard-won victory forged in the crucible of Selma and Birmingham. It was the response to decades of poll taxes, literacy tests, and a systematic regime of terror designed to ensure the ballot box remained a private club. The law was blunt because the problem was surgical: it established federal oversight for bad actors, provided tools to challenge maps that diluted minority power, and stated — in no uncertain terms — that the right to vote was the baseline of the American contract.

For over half a century, it worked. It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t a cure-all, but it provided the stability our system required for freedom to grow.

Last week, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais effectively ended that chapter. In a 6-3 decision, the Court’s majority didn’t just tweak the rules; they essentially gutted Section 2 of the VRA — the primary tool used to challenge electoral maps that discriminate. Justice Kagan, in a blistering dissent, called it a “death knell.” For anyone who believes that the integrity of the process is more important than the temporary victory of a party, she was being remarkably literal.

The Reality on the Ground

The practical consequences aren’t a distant “maybe.” They are happening in real-time, right in the middle of a 2026 election cycle.

• Louisiana has suspended its May primaries to redraw congressional maps.

• Texas, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio are moving to reshape districts months before voters head to the polls.

• Twenty-eight active lawsuits defending minority representation have been plunged into a legal void.

We are watching the “Purcell Principle” — the idea that you don’t change the rules right before an election — being tossed out the window. Changing the map while the primary is already in progress is the political equivalent of a referee moving the goalposts while the ball is mid-flight. It doesn’t just hurt one side; it makes the whole game look rigged.

For Americans who value fairness, stable institutions, and the rule of law, this isn’t a “social justice” issue — it’s a system integrity issue.

The same principles that make a contract enforceable or a court system trustworthy are the ones that make an election legitimate. When rules of democratic participation become variables to be optimized by the party in power, the entire system loses its “market value.”

The founders feared concentrated power above all else. They built a system of checks and balances because they knew that majorities, if left unchecked, would eventually cannibalize the very rules that put them there. Gerrymandering — racial or partisan — is that abuse made into policy. It doesn’t produce better representation; it produces entrenchment. It fuels the “two-party food fight” that exhausts the exhausted majority of Americans who just want a government that functions.

When you protect incumbents from the voters, you remove the only quality-control mechanism democracy has.

The Road Ahead

Bright America doesn’t claim to have a silver bullet for what comes next. No one does.

But we know this: the legal battle to protect voting rights didn’t end last week. It just shifted terrain. Our strategic litigation partner, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), has spent decades building the legal infrastructure to fight on this new ground. Their attorneys were in the trenches before this ruling, and they are already pivoting to meet this new reality.

This work doesn’t have a finish line. The VRA was reauthorized four times over fifty years precisely because its architects knew that rights, once won, require constant maintenance.

We are at a maintenance moment.

Time will tell how this ruling reshapes the November elections, but the principle remains unchanged even if the law did. We aren’t asking for agreement on every policy. We are asking for a shared insistence that the rules be fair, that maps represent people instead of protecting incumbents, and that six justices don’t get the final word on the voice of millions.

The ground shifted. Our footing remains the same.

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In 2006, I was a young staffer on Capitol Hill watching the Iraq War unravel in real time.

The costs were mounting, the justifications were shifting, and back home, the Abramoff and DeLay scandals were exposing a web of corruption so brazen it was impossible to ignore. The country felt the rot before the politicians admitted it. We wanted change.

We got it — in waves.

The 2006 midterms swept in a new majority. 2008 brought a “transformational” presidency. Two years later, the Tea Party. Then the backlash to the backlash. For two decades, we have been sprinting from one “most important election of our lifetime” to the next, yet the ground beneath our feet feels less stable than ever.

The Exhaustion of the Tribe

What we’re living through in 2026 feels familiar, but the scale has changed. The speed is faster; the stakes feel higher. If you talk to people outside the Beltway, they aren’t just angry — they’re worn out. They’ve tuned out not because they’ve stopped caring, but because caring at a national level has become a high-cost, low-reward endeavor that yields nothing but vitriol, anger, and/or stress.

We have mistaken the “echo” for the “source.”

This was the haunting observation made by former Senator Ben Sasse on 60 Minutes last night. Sasse, facing a terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, spoke with the clarity of a man who no longer has time for the performance of politics.

“I think our national political dysfunction is an echo of larger problems,” Sasse said. “I think your fundamental political community is your neighborhood, and your city hall... Right now we are sacrificing a lot of our national politics to weird folks who want their main community to be their political tribe at a federal level.”

The Fork in the Road

Sasse’s point is the “Culture First” manifesto: When our local communities — our “thick” relationships in churches, Rotary clubs, and neighborhoods — become thin, we try to fill that void with the “thin” community of national partisan identity. But it is a hunger that politics can never satisfy.

As we look toward the 2026 elections, we face a genuine fork in the road:

There’s the Path of the Quick Fix… The demand for a “strong hand” and simple answers. This is the old temptation to use federal power to bypass the messiness of persuasion.

And then there’s the Path of Civic Infrastructure… The “slower, harder” work of rebuilding shared norms and local connection.

The Framers designed our system with “friction” for a reason. They knew that massive change without broad consent doesn’t lead to progress; it leads to collapse or tyranny. But that friction only works if the culture understands why it’s there. If we don’t trust our neighbor, we won’t trust the system that requires us to compromise with them.

The Long Arc of Renewal

What does it mean for culture to lead politics? It means acknowledging that before the right laws can pass, the right values have to take root. Before coalitions form in legislatures, they have to form at the school board and the community center.

Politics is downstream from culture — not the other way around.

As Sasse put it, “Unless people know the thickness of their local community, it’s hard to make sense of what national politics are for.”

This is why Bright America exists. We aren’t focused on the next 24-hour news cycle; we are focused on the “longer arc.” We are looking for the leaders who refuse to trade one form of dysfunction for another — those who see the U.S. Constitution not as a weapon for their tribe, but as the architecture of a free society.

Renewal is possible. The country has lost, and found again, its footing before. But it has never happened from the top down. It starts with the slow work. It starts with the person next door.

“Knock, knock,” a wave, a smile — it’s where we begin

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We are currently witnessing what might be the most audacious raid on the American Treasury in the history of the Republic. With all the calamities pouring forth from the White House, no one would blame the American people from being unaware of a dangerous case moving quietly through the legal system: Trump v. Internal Revenue Service.

President Donald Trump is currently suing the very government he leads for a staggering $10 billion in damages. To put that number in perspective, that is more than 80% of the entire annual budget for the IRS. And I’m about to explain how he’s turning the public Treasury into a personal ATM.

The “Self-Settlement” Absurdity

The core of this outrage is a conflict of interest so blatant it feels like a fever dream. The President has sued an agency he oversees, which is defended by a Justice Department (DOJ) filled with his own appointees. Trump himself didn’t even try to hide the game, recently telling reporters:

“I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself.”

Under current norms, the President effectively controls both the plaintiff and the defendant in this litigation. This creates a “collusive litigation” environment where the public’s treasury is left entirely undefended. Justice Department lawyers are currently “struggling” (according to NY Times interviews) to decide how to respond, caught between their duty to the public and a White House executive order that binds them to the President’s own interpretation of the law.

The Secret “Voluntary Dismissal” Loophole

What makes this situation worse is the possibility of a “ghost” settlement — a massive payout that happens entirely behind closed doors. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41, a plaintiff can voluntarily dismiss a case at any time before the defendant files a formal answer.

Because the DOJ has repeatedly requested extensions to “engage in discussions designed to resolve this matter,” they have not yet filed a formal defense. If Trump has his government cut a check to himself in a private settlement, the only thing the public might ever see on the court docket is a simple notice of voluntary dismissal. The case would vanish, the legal questions would never be answered by a judge (who would surely throw the case out), and the money would simply disappear from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund.

Payouts in the Dark

You might think $10 billion would be hard to hide, but the technical mechanics of the Treasury’s payment systems are shockingly ill-equipped for this level of “shakedown.” The Treasury’s Secure Payment System actually has a 10-digit limit for single payments, capping them at $99,999,999.99. For a $10 billion heist, the administration would have to break the payout into dozens of separate hundred-million-dollar chunks just to get the system to accept it.

These payments are not reported instantaneously, meaning the money could be long gone before a single taxpayer realizes the vault has been emptied.

The Emerging “MAGA Grift”

This isn’t a one-off event, but a pattern. We’ve already seen the DOJ settle a lawsuit from Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, for $1.2 million after he sued on the grounds of “malicious prosecution”. Lawmakers are now warning of an “emerging MAGA grift” where allies of the President sue the government as a plaintiff, and then dismiss their case after Trump administration lawyers offer a big settlement in lieu of a trial (where a judge, jury, or public could hear the feeble arguments).

Trump has suggested he would donate any winnings to charity, but critics note that even if he did, it would still be the American taxpayer — not the President — forced to fund his personal philanthropy. And Trump does have a long history of giving away other people’s money rather than his own, then taking the credit.

The Fight Back: Stopping the Plunder

The good news is that the alarm bells are ringing. A coalition of lawmakers is moving to install the guardrails our system clearly lacks.

But, none of us should be naive. The likelihood that any of these pass, much less get signed by Trump into law while he’s in office, is practically zero — but that’s not the point. Our members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, need to hear that we’re upset about this, so that pressure bubbles up to the White House that this thievery is not worth the political cost.

Here’s what we should be encouraging our elected leaders, friends, and family to support:

• The Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act: Introduced by Senators Warren and Schumer alongside Representatives Raskin and Min, this bill would flatly prohibit any sitting President, Vice President, or their families from collecting settlement payments from the federal government.

• The Corruption Clawback Act: This legislation, already introduced by Senator Schiff, would create a mechanism to forcibly retrieve funds that have already been siphoned off through these abusive claims.

• The Stop Presidential Embezzlement Act: Senator Ron Wyden has proposed taxing any damages a President receives from the government at 100%, effectively negating the profit motive for suing the public.

We are now waiting for a “notice of voluntary dismissal” to hit the docket. That’s our first clue the worst case scenario has occured, and the check has likely already cleared.

We must demand that the DOJ zealously defend the public interest and that Congress passes these protections immediately. The integrity of our judicial process depends on whether the Presidency is a public service or a private business opportunity.

Do you think the Department of Justice should be allowed to settle a lawsuit with the President in secret?

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A fundamental American right is being tested. While exercising their First Amendment rights to observe and film federal law enforcement, peaceful protesters and observers have faced a disturbing reality: violent retaliation, intimidation, and arrests at the hands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents.

It’s happened across the country, but some of the most disturbing evidence came during ICE’s intense focus on Minneapolis.

At Bright America, we believe that the rule of law is only meaningful when it applies equally to everyone — especially those who wield the most power in our government. That is why we are proud to highlight the latest work of our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC), fueled in part by the Bright America movement, as they take the fight for our constitutional rights to the courts.

The Case: Tincher v. Noem

CLC has stepped into the active case of Tincher v. Noem. This lawsuit, filed on behalf of Minnesotans who were targeted by federal agents, seeks to halt what can only be described as a dangerous “illegal power grab”.

The core of the issue is simple: documenting government officials as they perform their duties lies at the very heart of the First Amendment. When federal agents use force to silence those watching them, they aren’t just breaking the law; they are undermining the foundation of our democracy.

Help Defend Our Freedoms

A Coalition of Expertise

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of this fight is who has stepped up to join it. CLC filed an amicus brief supported by 39 former career civil servants from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). These aren’t political operatives — they are professionals who served in the DOJ’s Special Litigation Section under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

These experts, who spent their careers eliminating patterns of illegal conduct by law enforcement, are sounding the alarm. They argue that federal agents in Minnesota are engaging in the exact same unconstitutional policing that the DOJ has condemned in the past.

Why This Matters

Presidential orders to enforce immigration policies do not grant federal agents a “blank check” to ignore the Constitution. Whether an officer is a local beat cop or a federal agent, they must be held to the same constitutional standards.

If we allow federal agencies to operate without constitutional restraint, we set a precedent where our rights to peaceful assembly and free speech become “conditional” rather than fundamental.

Bright America stands with CLC because we believe constitutional protections must be more than theoretical ideals — they must be enforceable guarantees. By supporting this litigation, we are ensuring that the government remains accountable to the people it serves.

Anything else would be un-American.

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Over the weekend, Donald Trump shared an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus. The backlash from his own religious allies was so swift that he did something we rarely see: he deleted the post.

While the incident was mocked as another “Trump being Trump” moment, it highlights the profound absurdity of our current political era. We are witnessing an administration consumed by petty grievances and the construction of a bizarre personal mythology. But this relentless circus distracts the public from a far more severe structural danger: When an executive operates under the delusion of a divine mandate, earthly constraints disappear.

Trump himself has signaled this intent to move beyond the law. He once claimed that his own morals were the only thing that could truly constrain him on the world stage—suggesting that statutes, treaties, and constitutional boundaries are secondary to his personal whims.

“My own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me.”

DONALD TRUMP

An executive branch functioning without boundaries inevitably breeds systemic corruption. The Founders anticipated leaders driven by unbounded ego; they did not trust the “internal morals” of any one man to protect the people. Instead, they built a strict framework of checks and balances to contain them, designing a system where “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

For the past year, we have relied almost entirely on the courts to maintain those boundaries. Thanks to the incredible work of our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center, there have been the critical legal challenges necessary for the judiciary to play an indispensable role in preserving the rule of law. Federal judges have consistently blocked unprecedented executive overreach and demanded basic institutional accountability. They have forced this administration to operate, however begrudgingly, within the confines of the law.

Help Us Push Back in the Courts

However, the courts cannot safeguard the republic in isolation. The Founders never intended for the judiciary to serve as the sole bulwark against executive abuse.

Congress must reclaim its rightful constitutional authority. For years, the legislative branch has abdicated its role as a co-equal power, with lawmakers trading rigorous oversight for partisan convenience. Congress (regardless of party) has surrendered its institutional prerogatives over decades, especially when the President is from the same party. They have invited the exact corruption the Constitution was written to prevent.

We need a fundamental shake-up. We need leaders with real courage to utilize legislative power as a firm check against the presidency. I am proud to see serious candidates stepping into the arena to challenge this complacency. People like my friend Olivia Troye understand these stakes; they recognize the urgent necessity for principled adults to LEAD beyond a press conference, and finally take action.

Restoring the balance of power requires the voting public to demand it. We cannot expect a broken institution to fix itself without external pressure.

Until Congress seats leadership willing to exercise its constitutional mandate, we must fight on the terrain we possess. This means pursuing accountability through the legal system and supporting organizations like the Campaign Legal Center as they enforce (and reconstruct) robust guardrails against corruption.

The American republic requires constant maintenance. We protect the Constitution not by placing our faith in the “morals” of a leader, but by defending the institutions designed to uphold the law.

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During President Donald Trump’s second term in office, his administration has consistently sought to unconstitutionally extend executive branch power in ways that dictate who can vote in our elections and how elections are administered. The president’s latest bid for control over our elections has produced yet another illegal executive order. This time, the main target is one the president is fond of blaming for electoral results he does not like: voting by mail.

The executive order was signed on March 31. Less than 48 hours later, Campaign Legal Center, alongside Democracy Defenders Fund, filed a lawsuit to block it on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens, Secure Families Initiative and Arizona Students’ Association. There’s a very simple reason why we were able to take legal action so quickly — it is based on the same faulty grounds as last year’s executive order on elections.

We challenged that order in court, because it illegally claimed a role for the executive branch in our elections where none exists in the Constitution or current law. Multiple federal courts have blocked the first executive order, and we fully expect the same to happen with this one.

Support this Critical Work

So, what does this new order purport to do? In short, it seeks to impose a series of new requirements for mail-in voting; create a national federal database of “verified” eligible voters based on faulty information; and restrict the ability of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to send mail-in ballots to voters not on that list. It also threatens to punish states that fail to comply with the order by withholding federal funding and prosecuting state and local election officials for failure to comply.

Implementing this executive order would have clear ramifications for voters and our democracy. States would face immense pressure to use inaccurate information to administer voting by mail — improperly disenfranchising voters in the process — and USPS could become a tool for denying untold numbers of Americans access to a safe and reliable method of voting.

But the Constitution allocates the power to run our elections only to the states and gives Congress the backup power to pass laws regulating the “time, place and manner” of federal elections. There is no role in the Constitution for the president to overrule the states or Congress concerning election procedures.

On occasion, Congress has used its authority to provide specific federal agencies and departments with limited roles in elections. Examples include the Federal Election Commission (created in 1974), which enforces campaign finance laws, and the Election Assistance Commission (2002), which is primarily tasked with providing support to states for election administration.

Notably, Congress created these agencies to be independent from the White House, but the Trump administration is testing the idea that such agencies should even exist. An executive order issued last year claims control over these agencies’ regulatory powers, and in a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, the president asserts total authority to fire the heads of independent agencies.

That separation of powers is even more pronounced when it comes to the USPS — only Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate the U.S. mail. The president cannot order USPS to take actions such as limiting the delivery of mail ballots, which would be contrary to its universal service mandate or the governing procedures established for it by Congress.

It is difficult to look at this administration’s actions and believe that the goal is anything other than dictating who can vote in our elections to assist candidates of the president’s own party. The stated reasons for this are grounded in discredited falsehoods about fraudulent voting. Fortunately, the prospects of defeating these actions are good, because the law is firmly on the side of those, like Campaign Legal Center, who know that the president and his allies in the administration do not have the authority to meddle with our elections.

Looking for more in-depth insights on issues critical to our democracy? Consider subscribing to the “From the Desk of Trevor Potter” newsletter, written by Campaign Legal Center’s founder and president, Trevor Potter. Get expert analysis and learn more about Campaign Legal Center’s efforts to protect and strengthen democracy for all Americans by subscribing via email or on LinkedIn.

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If you feel like we’ve been here before, it’s because we have.

In March 2025, the Trump administration attempted to illegally rewrite the rules of our federal elections through an executive order, and our movement’s strategic litigation partner — Campaign Legal Center (CLC) — swiftly defeated it in court.

Fast forward to March 31, 2026, and the administration is doubling down on the same absurdity. Despite the clear constitutional boundaries established by our movement’s previous victory, the President has issued yet another executive order (EO) designed to strip millions of Americans of their fundamental freedom to vote. Thankfully, CLC is back in court to stop this lawlessness once again.

The Anatomy of Absurd Overreach

This latest directive isn’t just a policy change; it’s an attempt to manufacture a national election system that the President has no legal authority to create. The order relies on three “lawless” pillars that ignore the separation of powers:

1) The “Verified” Database Trap. The President is ordering the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to compile a list of “confirmed” U.S. citizens to be sent to states. The absurdity? This database relies on stale and faulty data that has been repeatedly proven incomplete and unreliable. Using this “verification” to restrict voting only serves to disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans.

2) Weaponizing the Post Office. In a move that ignores the Constitution entirely, the EO directs the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to only deliver mail-in ballots to individuals on a newly created federal list. The Constitution grants Congress—not the President—the exclusive power to make laws governing the delivery of mail. The President has zero authority to issue these demands to the USPS, which is meant to serve the public, not political interests.

3) Bullying Election Officials. The order goes so far as to direct the U.S. Attorney General to investigate and prosecute hard-working local election officials who do not use this new, faulty federal list. It is a blatant attempt to exert executive control over a process that the Constitution explicitly gives to the states and Congress.

Why We’ll Stop Him in Court (Again)

The law hasn’t changed since the last time the administration tried this. The President is attempting to unconstitutionally shape the electorate to his will and sow doubt in the security of our elections.

CLC has filed a lawsuit to prevent this illegal order from taking effect, reminding the courts of three simple truths:

1) The President has no constitutional authority over our elections.

2) The President cannot dictate operations to the independent USPS.

3) Forcing states to preserve election materials for five years — when federal law only requires 22 months — is a direct violation of existing statute.

Help Us Fuel This Vital Work!

Protecting the Future of Our Democracy

Voting by mail expands access to the ballot and strengthens our democracy. Attempting to limit that access through “stale data” and “illegal demands” is an abuse of power that we cannot allow to become the new normal.

Our movement beat the last illegal anti-voter executive order in court, and we have the army of lawyers to do it again. The Constitution is clear on the limits of executive power, and no matter what the President claims, he cannot override the law of the land.

“Campaign Legal Center won’t let that happen — join us today to protect the freedom to vote for millions of Americans.”

Do you think these repeated attempts at election overreach are a strategy to normalize executive control, or are they simply a reaction to previous legal defeats?

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In America, we the voters pick our leaders.

And yet, this simple idea that has guided our democracy for centuries, is now being flipped on its head (yet again) by President Trump and his enablers. Earlier this week, the President signed an Executive Order that represents a blatant, unconstitutional attempt to seize control of our elections before the first ballots are even cast. This isn’t just another policy debate; it is a coordinated power grab by an administration that’s become so unpopular it already knows what will happen if it’s left to the will of the people.

The motive behind this move is transparent: MAGA is losing. Instead of trying to earn our votes, the Trump administration is trying to change who gets to vote and how those votes are counted so they can declare themselves the winners. A healthy political party tries to court your vote, but an authoritarian administration tries to keep you from voting at all.

By attempting to dictate election rules from the Oval Office — an area where the President has zero legal or constitutional authority — they are trying to control the outcome of the election to keep maintain one-party rule at any cost.

The President has already tried a federal takeover of our elections by executive order, and our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC) defeated it in court. Trump then tried to get Congress to pass his executive order into law, but that path is blocked by the filibuster. So now he’s back for a third try, with anexecutive order that once again attempts to bypass the states and Congress by creating a federal “state citizenship list” to determine who is eligible to vote. It even goes as far as trying to weaponize the U.S. Postal Service by ordering them to stop delivering mail-in ballots for anyone not on this new, error-prone federal list.

Help Hand Him ANOTHER Defeat

This is flatly illegal.

The Constitution gives the power to run elections to the states and Congress, not the executive branch. This is just another trick in the book to try and silence the voices of “we the people.”

The Trump Administration is not acting alone; they have a growing number of accomplices helping to execute these rules in real-time. We are seeing a governing strategy that connects voter intimidation to assaults in our streets. From sending masked militia to terrorize neighborhoods to using federal power to retaliate against those who speak out, the message is clear: stay silent or pay the price. They are targeting Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, and immigrant communities the hardest, hoping that fear will follow people from their neighborhoods to the ballot box.

There is also a staggering level of hypocrisy at play. Just last week, President Trump, his wife, and his son all voted by mail in a Florida special election. If voting by mail works for the President and his family, it must work for every eligible American. The claim that these moves are about “election integrity” is a lie used to justify barriers that silence voters. Our elections are already transparent and accurate; the only real threat to them is an administration that lies about the results.

The gravity of this situation is real, but our response is our power. Our movement exists to meet this exact moment. An army of lawyers at Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is mobilizing to respond to assaults on our elections and across the country we’re pushing back against these unlawful acts. We have reason to be hopeful because we keep winning in court. Judges have already stopped previous attempts by this administration to take over elections, and we are confident they will do so again.

Our country is strongest when we refuse to be intimidated and show up to make our voices heard. We will decide our future, we will choose our leaders, and we will ensure that liberty and justice are for all, with no exceptions. Tell the Trump regime: Hands off our vote!

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In a healthy democracy, the government’s job is to make sure every eligible citizen can cast a ballot. But lately, we’ve seen a troubling trend: states using “faulty data” to quietly remove thousands of eligible Americans from the voter rolls.

This week, we are celebrating the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), our strategic litigation partner, for continuing to take a stand. They’ve just filed two major lawsuits in Texas and Ohio to stop illegal voter purges that specifically target naturalized citizens.

Here is what’s happening on the ground and why it’s a victory for fairness and the rule of law.

1) The Texas Case: Fighting “Faulty Data”

In Texas, the Secretary of State recently directed counties to use the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) system to flag voters for removal.

However, the SAVE system was never designed to manage voter rolls. It often contains “stale” data — meaning a person might be listed as a non-citizen because they were one five years ago, even though they have since naturalized and become eligible U.S. citizens.

So this movement is standing up and suing to stop Texas from using this unreliable data to purge voters without proper investigation. As CLC puts it: “Every American citizen, regardless of where they are born, should have the freedom to vote.”

2) The Ohio Case: Protecting the “Quiet Period”

In Ohio, a new law (SB 293) requires monthly “citizenship checks” and mandates that registrations be canceled — sometimes without any prior notice to the voter.

The problem with that is federal law (the National Voter Registration Act) mandates a 90-day “Quiet Period” before an election. This exists so that states don’t accidentally purge eligible voters right before an election when it’s too late for the voter to fix the mistake. Ohio’s law ignores this protection, allowing purges right up to Election Day.

And that’s why this movement is suing to ensure that naturalized citizens aren’t treated as “second-class voters” who have to jump through extra hoops just to stay registered.

This matters, even if you aren’t a naturalized citizen

These lawsuits aren’t just about legal technicalities; they are about belonging and the rule of law.

When a person goes through the long, rigorous process of becoming a U.S. citizen, one of the greatest rewards is the right to vote. To have that right threatened by a clerical error or a “glitchy” database is a betrayal of the American promise.

By fighting these purges, CLC is ensuring that our voter rolls stay accurate without sacrificing the rights of our neighbors. It’s a reminder that democracy is a “constant vigil” —and today, the law is on the side of the voter.

How You Can Help

• Check Your Status: Even if you’ve voted for years, it’s always a good idea to verify your registration.

• Support the Work: Donate today to help fund these cases and other litigation like them.

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BY TREVOR POTTER

When the story of Donald Trump’s second presidential term is told in full, a rampant culture of corruption fostered by the president and his administration will surely be one of the central themes. In this moment, the task of capturing the scale and impact of the administration’s failure to uphold laws and standards governing ethical conduct falls to civil society.

An exhaustive effort to track, document and expose (often through legal action) blatant examples of self-dealing and pay-to-play corruption has led the attorneys and researchers here at Campaign Legal Center (CLC) to conclude that our government is experiencing its worst ethics crisis since the days of Watergate.

We do this work with the full knowledge that officials in this administration are unlikely to hold wrongdoers accountable, especially those within the president’s inner circle. However, we believe building a record of corruption and exposing betrayals of public trust is vital to address the dramatic democratic backsliding occurring during the second Trump term. While stories like the Qatari government gifting a luxury jet to the president manage to break through a crowded news cycle, there are many others that go virtually unnoticed by the vast majority of Americans.

Rising corruption is one of the warning signs of a failing democracy, and ours is certainly under threat. Shining a light on corrupt acts and demanding accountability is key to confronting this problem by ensuring that the public, including elected officials, understands what is happening within the government. This work is also crucial for building support to advance systemic reforms in the future.

Corruption on a colossal scale

Campaign Legal Center’s Trump Corrupt Transactions Tracker, which we launched last November and are updating regularly, currently features more than three dozen egregious instances of the Trump administration abusing executive branch power by doling out favorable treatment to those who financially support the president’s personal or political interests.

One item from the tracker that stands out as a multi-dimensional example of corruption is the case of a Venezuelan-Italian billionaire. Facing criminal bribery charges, Julio Herrera Velutini received an incredibly lenient plea deal last year from federal prosecutors and was pardoned by President Trump in January 2026 — after his daughter reportedly contributed $3.5 million to MAGA Inc., a Trump-supporting super PAC.

Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Velutini of illegally funneling his own money to the Trump-supporting super PAC through his daughter. This classic “straw donor” scheme concealed his identity as the true contributor and allowed foreign money to influence the election — which federal law expressly prohibits. It’s one of dozens of ethics and campaign finance complaints filed by Campaign Legal Center since Trump returned to office.

Abuse of the presidential pardon power is one of six corruption categories covered by the CLC tracker. The others involve cabinet or senior executive branch appointments, ambassadorships, dropped cases and investigations, perks and promises for corporations and favors for foreign governments.

The most recent updates and additions include:

• Timothy J. Leiweke, whose company Oak View Group donated $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund. Leiweke was indicted last July for conspiring to rig the bidding process for a multi-use arena at a public university in Texas. He received a pardon five months later in December, after his attorney played a round of golf with President Trump.

• In January, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dismissed its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange platform Gemini Trust. Gemini’s founders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who are reportedly “among the president’s closest allies in the crypto industry,” contributed more than $2.5 million in support of his 2024 campaign. They more recently donated funds for the construction of the White House ballroom and backed a crypto firm co-founded by Eric Trump, the president’s second son.

Preparing for a new day

What we are witnessing is an unconscionable rejection of post-Watergate anti-corruption reforms. Following that scandal, members of Congress realized they needed to pass new laws and create new oversight structures within the government to prevent corruption in the future and hold government officials accountable for their actions.

Campaign Legal Center is working to formulate the next generation of anti-corruption laws with the same core purpose of the Watergate reforms — restoring public trust in government institutions. By exposing weaknesses in existing laws and practices, the Trump administration is showing us exactly where our anti-corruption guardrails are most in need of repair or replacement:

• Ethics enforcement in the executive branch requires a major overhaul. Campaign Legal Center is calling on a future Congress to create an independent executive branch ethics body to centralize enforcement authorities currently distributed among several different executive branch offices and agencies.

• We need permanent rules to stop the revolving door in Washington that moves lobbyists into top government posts overseeing their former clients. Today, such rules are determined by each incoming administration, and even those are often ignored.

• On the issue of pardons, future presidents should commit to awarding clemency based on recommendations from career staff in the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Congress should enact legislation requiring detailed explanations for every pardon; mandating disclosure of gifts or political contributions received from pardon recipients; and tightening the disclosure rules around private lobbying for clemency.

• To reduce the corrupting influence of dark money in our elections, Congress should enact the DISCLOSE Act, which would require the kind of transparency around election spending that voters deserve. When billionaires and major corporations are allowed to influence elections in secret, it is nearly impossible to “follow the money” and expose a corrupt pay-to-play bargain. The Federal Election Commission, tasked with enforcing campaign finance laws — in no small part for the purpose of preventing corruption — is also in need of structural repairs.

Our nation’s history includes notable examples of government reformers rising up to meet the moment following periods of scandal and corruption. Aside from the post-Watergate period, one can think about the progressive era that followed the Gilded Age and the successful push for campaign finance reform in the early 2000’s, an effort that I was fortunate to be a part of. The lesson, in my view, is that reformers need to be ready when opportunities arise. It’s a lesson that we at Campaign Legal Center are taking very seriously as the current corruption crisis unfolds.

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Cynicism is the easiest thing in the world to sell. It’s loud, it’s cheap, and it’s remarkably addictive. If you spend twenty minutes on a digital feed or watching a cable news broadcast, you’ll be convinced that the American project is a rusted-out machine held together by nothing but spite.

But there is a secret (well, perhaps not a secret to all, but something that’s easy to forget) the loudest voices don’t want you to know: The engine of America doesn’t make that much noise.

If you step away from the screen and look at your own town — the club meeting, the community garden, the local business owner sponsoring a Little League team — you aren’t seeing “politics” as defined by Washington. You are seeing the actual machinery of a republic in motion. As important as protest is, it’s not how most people show up in every day life to make a difference.

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The Muscle of Association

Two centuries ago, Alexis de Tocqueville traveled across this young wilderness and was baffled by what he saw. In Europe, if a tree fell across a road, people waited for the Crown to move it. In America, neighbors simply grabbed their saws and got to work.

Tocqueville called this “the art of association.” He realized that our strength didn’t come from a powerful central government, but from civic muscle. Like any muscle, if you stop using it, it atrophies. When we outsource our civic responsibility to talking heads, we shouldn’t be surprised when our communities feel weaker than they once were.

The Quiet Work of Governing

During my time in the halls of Congress, I saw a reality that doesn’t make the news. Behind the viral clips and the partisan shouting, there is a “quiet legislature” that still functions.

Every day, lawmakers work across the aisle to update the boundaries of a national park, streamline agency tools to reduce waste, or advocate for the unique needs of their home districts. It is the fundamental work of keeping a continent-sized nation functioning.

The problem today isn’t that this work has stopped; it’s that our current incentive structure rewards the loudest voices and ignores the steady hands. A thriving republic requires us to get back to rewarding the builders.

Strengthening the Foundation

At Bright America, we aren’t just talking about these ideas — we are building the spaces where they can flourish again.

Through our Communities for the Constitution events, we are bringing people into a room to organize around shared goals rather than shared grievances. Our focus is clear:

• Strengthening the Rule of Law: Ensuring our local systems are fair, transparent, and grounded in constitutional principles.

• Forceful Engagement: Not with partisan vitriol, but with our democracy’s institutions — holding them accountable and making them work for the people again.

• Civic Courage: Enlisting others in the community to stand up for what is right, even when it isn’t popular.

We’re scaling these events nationwide over the next year because a republic cannot be saved from the top down. It has to be strengthened from the porch up.

What’s your next move?

It’s ok to be outraged by what’s happening — but outrage isn’t enough. Our nation needs enough people willing to make a commitment to a brighter future, to be part of a community for the constitution. Tell us how you’re ready to flex your civic muscle this year.

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If you were relying on President Trump and his allies for information about the state of our nation’s elections, you might understandably believe there are millions of foreigners illegally voting in American elections. And such massive fraud — if you’d been convinced it was happening by your leaders and favorite media influencers — might understandably justify all sorts unconstitutional remedies.

Fortunately (for all Americans) that just isn’t true or possible.

And yet, the President is demanding passage of the SAVE Act — a complete overhaul of how we handle elections in America. While it is often discussed as a “security” bill, its actual mechanics would build a massive paperwork wall between everyday citizens and the ballot box.

Here is a deep dive into what this bill actually does and why it’s causing so much concern.

What exactly is the SAVE Act?

The core goal of the SAVE Act is to require every person to provide “documentary proof of citizenship” just to register to vote for federal elections. In the past, you could usually register by checking a box swearing you are a citizen and providing a driver’s license number, which is tied on the back end to Social Security data, not to mention many other metrics that have allowed our state and local election officials to conduct quality control list maintenance for decades.. Under this act, that system is gone.

Instead, you would be forced to show a U.S. passport or an original birth certificate. If you don’t have those, you’d have to find other highly specific government documents that many Americans don’t have readily available.

The bill also moves the goalposts for how you register. It would require you to present these documents in person. This would effectively kill the convenience of registering by mail and would completely upend the online registration systems that millions of Americans use today.

A New Set of Hurdles

The SAVE Act doesn’t just ask for ID; it asks for ID that many people simply do not have.

• The Passport Problem: Studies show that fewer than half of U.S. citizens actually hold a passport.

• The “REAL ID” Trap: You might think your modern “REAL ID” driver’s license — the one with the star on it that required you to jump through so many hoops — would work. It won’t. Most REAL IDs are issued based on “lawful presence” (like a green card), not necessarily citizenship, so they lack the specific markers this law requires.

• The Name Change Nightmare: This bill hits married women especially hard. If a woman changed her name after marriage, her birth certificate won’t match her current legal name. Nearly 69 million married women could face new barriers because their documents don’t match perfectly.

• Moving Hurdles: If you move to a new state, you can’t just update your registration easily as you can today. You’d have to “chase down” certified records from your old state to prove who you are all over again.

Help us Defend our Sacred Voting Rights

Who is impacted?

While the President claims this law will uncover massive Democratic fraud and purge millions of ineligible voters from the rolls, the data shows that Republican voters would face some of the biggest hurdles.

The states where President Trump performed best in 2024 actually have the lowest number of citizens with valid passports. In West Virginia, for instance, 78% of citizens lack a passport, and in Mississippi, that number is 77%. Key GOP voting blocs — like rural Americans, the working class, and those living in “Evangelical hubs” — are among the least likely to have the paperwork this bill demands.

Nationalizing the Voter Rolls

There is also a second version of this plan called the SAVE America Act. This version goes even further by trying to “nationalize” our elections, which the President is demanding despite elections being managed at the state level since our founding. Having election administration decentralized, as it is today, is actually one of the reasons it is so difficult to pull-off impactful fraud.

The bill would force every state to submit its entire voter registration list to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The federal government would then run these names through a database called SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements).

The problem? This database wasn’t built for elections, and it’s often wrong. When Texas tried using it, the system flagged over 2,700 people as noncitizens. Later investigations found many of those people had already proven their citizenship to the state — the federal data was simply “faulty or incomplete”. This can lead to voter purges, where eligible voters are kicked off the rolls without any notice.

Prison Time for Election Workers

One of the most intense parts of the SAVE Act is how it treats the people who run our elections. Under this law, an election official could be sent to prison for up to five years if they make a mistake and register someone who doesn’t have every single “burdensome” document required — even when that person is a confirmed U.S. citizen. Critics argue this will make it even harder to find people willing to work at the polls, as they’d be terrified of making a simple paperwork error and ending up behind bars.

Is there a real problem to solve?

The big question is whether we actually need these strict new rules. Most evidence suggests our current systems already work quite well. For example:

• Utah recently audited its list of 2 million voters and found only one confirmed noncitizen (who’d never even voted).

• Georgia did a similar audit of 8.2 million voters and found only 20 people who lacked proof of citizenship.

Existing laws already make it illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. Most experts argue that instead of a federal takeover, we should be investing in modernizing the systems we already have — like better data sharing between state agencies — rather than building new barriers that stop millions of legal Americans from voting.

When someone registers to vote in America today, states don’t just take their word that they’re qualified to vote. Their Social Security number gets checked against federal citizenship records. If they registered at the DMV — which most people do — the state already knows whether they hold a non-citizen license. And every registrant signs a legal declaration under penalty of perjury. Lying on that form isn’t a parking ticket. It’s a felony. For a non-citizen, it’s also a one-way ticket to deportation.

The system isn’t perfect, but it’s working. Documented cases of non-citizens casting ballots are vanishingly rare — not because we’re not looking, but because the incentives and the architecture both push hard against it.

Adding another lock to a door that isn’t being broken down doesn’t make the house safer. It just makes it harder for the people who live there to get in.

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