We Can and Must Save Democracy

Let's Do It Together Across Party Lines in 2026, Not 2028

Career politicians, big-money donors, and backroom political operators from think tanks in Washington have created a partisan national political environment that is designed to be exclusive instead of pluralistic.

On the left, the Third Way tries to gatekeep democracy behind expertise and identity politics. On the whole, the narrative is clear: "We don't trust you people not to vote against your own best interests. But that's ok, we're the adults in the room. You're with us, because we're not them. They're extreme."

On the right, the Heritage Foundation pushes the unitary executive theory, an extreme idea that claims the president has total control over the entire executive branch — including federal agencies and prosecutors. In practice, it's a concerted effort to establish an American dictatorship where the will of one man can override the will of Congress, the courts, and ultimately, the people.

To save our democracy, we must reverse this authoritarian concentration of power and return the power to the people. The best way we can save democracy is to actually be a democracy instead of our current political oligarchy, where only Donald Trump and senior Democratic Party insiders have any control over the legislative agenda and political narrative, and corporate special interest groups wield the power of the pen to encode thousands of pages of dense legalese into law.

But we already have a mechanism to realize the collective power of our voices: the discharge petition. And if we work together across ideological lines, we can establish a Legislative State to apply pressure on our elected officials to be accountable to the people, not just partisan big-money donors.

Let's Stop the President from Abusing his Power

Congress Must Do Its Damn Job and Check the Power of the President

In recent years, the boundaries of executive power have been tested more than ever before. The modern presidency—regardless of party—now wields an extraordinary degree of authority over agencies that were originally meant to serve as professional, apolitical institutions. Backed by theories such as the unitary executive theory, this consolidation of power has raised serious questions about whether our system of checks and balances is still functioning as intended.

This shift of the balance of power away from Congress and into the Presidency did not begin with any one administration. It reflects decades of congressional delegation and executive expansion, trends that span both parties and multiple generations.

The administrative state, which includes agencies like the Department of State, Department of Defense, Department of Education, and Social Security Administration, is not a formally defined entity in the Constitution, but it has long functioned as the professional backbone of the federal government that executes the day-to-day governance, interpreting and implementing laws passed by Congress. In doing so, the administrative state serves as a quasi-check on the power of the president, a de facto 4th branch of the government and a stabilizing force within the Executive Branch.

Recent efforts to consolidate control over federal agencies have weakened the very institutions designed to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress. The modern presidency increasingly seeks to control or bypass these professional, apolitical institutions, an erosion of the constitutional balance that has kept American democracy functioning for generations. The framers of the Constitution created three distinct branches of government to distribute power among the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches. Yet modern partisan politics has blurred these boundaries. When the leadership of Congress and the presidency are aligned with the same political party, partisan loyalty often takes precedence over constitutional duty, making it harder for Congress to serve as an effective check on executive power.

Recent actions, such as gutting the administrative state, and the use of broad tariff authority and the authorization of military drone and missile strikes without congressional consent, illustrate how easily executive power can exceed its intended limits. These moves challenge the spirit of the Take Care Clause in Article II, Section 3, as well as Congress's authority under the Commerce and War Powers Clauses in Article I, Section 8. The same imbalance appears in statutes like Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which effectively allows the president to act in areas the Constitution reserves to Congress.

Article II, Section 3 states that one of the president's duties is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution authorizes Congress to regulate commerce between nations and declare war on other nations.

There is no amendment to the Constitution that altered the Take Care Clause in Article II, Section 3 or the Commerce and War Powers Clauses in Article I, Section 8. While some have argued that President Trump's actions are unconstitutional, it does not make sense to impeach the president over what has become a systemic problem, because both major political parties have contributed to the delegation of powers away from Congress and into the presidency. This is just the latest example of how the powers once reserved for Congress have been gradually delegated to the executive branch over several generations.

Restoring this balance will take more than politics as usual; it will require a systemic restructuring on how Congress acts and for the public to engage directly through transparent civic participation.

Let's Increase Legislative Transparency by Publicizing the Writing of Laws

If the Laws are Public, then the Sausage-Making Should Be Publicized

Far too many laws are drafted behind closed doors — not by elected officials, but by lobbyists and special interest groups who are enabled by corrupt career politicians to shape legislation from behind closed doors to serve themselves instead of the public.

It's time to shine a light up in there.

We can fight back by establishing a Legislative State: a legislative-branch counterpart to the administrative state. This new grassroots architecture would focus on legislation, funding, oversight, and policy design. The lawmaking would be done in a collaborative way that is open to the public through websites whose source code is free and open source.

The guiding principle for the Legislative State would be a corporate governance philosophy invented by Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, called radical transparency.

If we can create a decentralized group of citizens and lawmakers to collaboratively draft the legislation for Congress in a publicized, transparent manner, we can invalidate the laws written by corrupt special interest groups and lobbyists that rig the rules in their favor, and we can create a bloc of highly-engaged voters that have influence over every congressional primary. With the Legislative State, it would be understood that the drafting and editing of all bills would be publicly visible before they can even be introduced in committee in Congress.

Not only would this make it easier for other lawmakers and the general public to vet the contents of the bills being written, but also make it harder for the special interest groups to work from the shadows to rig the rules for themselves at the expense of the American people.

A Legal Tool for Activism: The Discharge Petition

We the People Can Wield the Power of the Pen, Not Just the Politicians

It is possible to force the House of Representatives to act on behalf of the people, not partisan politics. We have the power to tell our representatives to start a discharge petition for a bill that we write and advocate for during the midterm election season This is the mechanism that the Legislative State can use to lobby Congress to pass laws made of by and for the people, not the corporations.

If we can get a majority of representatives in the House to sign onto the petition, we can force the House to vote on the bill. Once it's on the floor of the House, we will see who is blocking it from passing. For all swamp creatures that vote Nay, we will organize! Local newspapers, write articles! Local radio stations, put them on blast! Local residents, flood the office with calls and emails, and get on the ground and organize!

If we can get an unvetoable majority of representatives to vote in favor of the bill, then the representatives can do a standing filibuster. The House can storm the Senate — not with zip-ties and violence, but instead with votes and voices — and refuse to leave the Senate chamber until the bill receives an unvetoable majority of senators to vote in favor. If we can pass a law that receives an unvetoable majority in favor in both the House and the Senate, then it will become law, regardless of what the White House wants.

Yes, the government sucks. And if the government will not do its job, then it is incumbent on us to do their job for them. While I would understand a "f$!k the government" kind of attitude, I have a slightly different one: Let's un-suck the government together!

Even if we can't get an unvetoable majority in favor of a bill, this process would make it politically difficult for the White House to reject the bill on partisan contrarianism alone. No one could characterize it as a "liberal wish list" or "extreme MAGA agenda" or claim that "no one knows what's in the bill." To the contrary, since all bills going through Congress are easily accessible online through Congress.gov, it would be extremely easy for anyone to verify that the official version circulating in the House of Representatives indeed matches the version of bill we're advocating for.

I reject the notion that the "sausage-making" of public laws can only be made from shady backroom deals in the Washington swamp and written by special interest groups and corporate entities who spew thousands of pages of dense legalese. To the contrary, I believe that most major bills should be collaboratively written out in the open and introduced through discharge petitions during election or activist campaigns. This would allow us to have real, productive conversations with the general public about the enormously consequential laws we're trying to pass as a nation. It makes sense to pass laws during election season, because election season is when people are paying the most attention to politics. Far more important than Beltway bipartisanship is for millions of Americans to engage, understand, and participate in the democratic process.

And even after the election, using discharge petitions for small, but substantive bills can help desegregate the House of Representatives, increase public engagement and transparency, and encourage any member of the House or the general public to present a winning idea, not just party leadership whose claim to fame is being able to court wealthy donors and count to 218 (link unrelated), or those who care more about the Hastert Rule than the rule of the people (link unrelated).