Sebastian JamesKey takeaways
- The goal is a legislative program that restores enforceable limits on presidential power, and a public record of who supports those limits and who opposes them.
- First 30 days: a legal-failures inventory that separates violations of existing law from gaps in the law or reliance on nonbinding norms.
- First 100 days: each committee drafts narrow bills that answer five questions, from what failure they address to why they hold up under a future administration of either party.
- By month six: floor votes, with each member's recorded vote published next to the safeguard at stake.
- Through 2028: a public scorecard that measures documented actions, not partisan loyalty.
The objective: turn the administration’s documented legal failures into a concrete legislative program that restores enforceable limits on presidential power, and establish a public record of who supports those limits and who opposes them.
A Democratic House does not need a Democratic Senate to begin this work. It needs a coordinated plan to investigate, legislate, force public choices and sustain the effort through November 2028.
The plan in four stages
- First 30 days: set the agenda. A cross-committee working group, a public inventory of legal failures, a diagnosis of each case as a violation or a gap, and a public legislative calendar.
- First 100 days: write the bills. Judiciary, Oversight, Appropriations, Homeland Security and House Administration each take a defined area. Bills are drafted narrowly, so members have to confront the actual safeguard instead of rejecting an omnibus over one provision.
- By month six: hold the votes. Markups and floor votes, with every recorded vote published next to the safeguard at stake. The point is a meaningful record of choices, not a predetermined outcome.
- Through 2028: keep the score. A public scorecard that connects each failure to its remedy and to what Congress did, with source documents anyone can check.
Investigate. Draft. Mark up. Vote. Document. Repeat.
The deck
Make Them Vote on Accountability
How to read it: Use the arrow keys, click or swipe to move between slides. Open it full screen to present it.
Loading the presentation. If it doesn't appear, open it full screen.