Ensuring Our Democracy is Powered by People

Yesterday, elections in Texas and across the country proved once again the power of everyday people making their voices heard in our Democracy. That’s how our country should work — people having more power than PACs, access to our government that is not restricted by how much you can pay, and voters choosing their representatives instead of the other way around.

These values, that our Democracy functions best when it’s fueled by people, is why I co-sponsored the We the People Democracy Reform Act of 2017 (H.R. 3537). This legislation consists of various critically important campaign finance, good government, and ethics reform provisions. One of these is my Real Time Transparency Act (H.R. 1548), which would require all candidates for federal office to report contributions of over $1,000 to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) within 48 hours.

This bill simply makes sense for our Democracy. If someone donates $1,000 or more to a candidate or political committee, the public has the right to know about it. We don’t need even more money flowing into our electoral system without proper disclosure and accountability.

Partner legislation (S. 1880) to the We The People Act has also been introduced in the Senate, where it has 14 co-sponsors.