Protecting Our Democracy Act
The provisions, in plain language.
Requires the Attorney General, within 30 days after the President pardons or commutes a sentence for an offense tied to an investigation of the President, the President's relatives, former Presidents, or their appointees or campaign staff, to give the House and Senate Judiciary Committees all prosecution and investigative materials about that offense and about the pardon, and bars grand-jury secrecy rules from blocking that disclosure.
Makes federal bribery law explicitly cover the President and Vice President, and treats offering or giving a pardon, commutation, or reprieve as a thing of value that can constitute bribery.
Declares that a President's attempt to pardon himself or herself is void and gives the President no immunity from investigation or prosecution.
Extends or suspends the criminal statute of limitations so that a sitting President or Vice President can be charged after leaving office for federal crimes committed beforehand, and states that nothing bars indicting or prosecuting a President or Vice President while in office.
Applies the criminal ban on Members of Congress and officials profiting from federal contracts to the President, Vice President, and Cabinet members.
Lets the pension, allowances, and benefits a former President receives under the Former Presidents Act be reduced or withheld if that former President is convicted of certain offenses.
Makes it unlawful for the President, Vice President, and other officials holding an office of profit or trust to accept any present, payment, office, or title from a foreign government without Congress's consent, reaching payments made indirectly or to the official's private businesses.
Lets the Senate or House sue an official in a fast-tracked three-judge D.C. court (appealable directly to the Supreme Court) for accepting a foreign payment, and authorizes courts to order disgorgement, surrender of the gift, and loss of any office or title obtained.
Requires nominees needing Senate confirmation, certain senior appointees, and people granted clemency to report payments they made to the President or the President's businesses, and requires presidential appointees to file public financial disclosures.
Bars senior executive-branch appointees and people the President pardoned from making payments to the President or to a Presidentially-owned business (above a $50 threshold), bars the President from accepting such payments, and requires any such payment to be turned over to the Treasury and reported to Congress.
Lets the Attorney General sue for civil penalties up to $5,000 above the payment's value, and creates a whistleblower (qui tam) action letting a private person sue on the government's behalf, for illegal payments to the President.
Requires the Office of Government Ethics to set ethics rules for legal-expense funds benefiting the President, Vice President, or political appointees, and bars such funds from taking money from registered lobbyists or foreign agents.
Removes a special exception in campaign-finance law for certain inaugural-committee and presidential-related disclosures so general reporting rules apply, effective for inaugurations held in 2029 and later.
Creates a court process and federal-court jurisdiction for Congress to enforce its subpoenas, with expedited procedures, while stating Congress's existing enforcement powers and the duty to comply are not narrowed.
Strengthens the right of executive-branch employees to give Congress information by amending the law that protects such disclosures and lets individual Members of Congress (not just committees) obtain certain agency records.
Rewrites budget-impoundment law so the President generally must spend money Congress appropriated, narrows the President's authority to delay or cancel spending, and gives the Comptroller General and Attorney General roles in enforcing anti-deficiency limits.
Requires the Office of Legal Counsel to publish its final legal opinions on a free, searchable public website on set deadlines, allowing withholding only on narrow grounds (such as properly classified material or a written presidential executive-privilege claim) with public summaries of withheld opinions.
Rewrites the National Emergencies Act so a presidentially declared national emergency automatically ends unless Congress affirmatively approves it, and requires congressional approval to renew an emergency.
Requires the President to submit secret 'presidential emergency action documents' to congressional committees within set deadlines, both new ones and the roughly 56 already in existence.
Requires the Attorney General to keep and submit to the DOJ Inspector General a quarterly log of communications between the White House and Justice Department about specific investigations or litigation, and requires the Inspector General to flag improper political interference to the Judiciary Committees.
Expands federal whistleblower protections for executive-branch employees, including protecting more categories of protected disclosure and a wider set of workers (such as Public Health Service and NOAA Corps officers), and adds a route to sue in U.S. district court when the Merit Systems Protection Board does not timely resolve a claim.
Requires that a whistleblower who wins relief be made whole as if the retaliation had not occurred, including restored training, seniority, and promotions, and bars retaliatory furloughs.
Restricts who can serve in an acting capacity in vacant Senate-confirmed positions and how long they may serve, requires the first assistant to have held the job at least 30 days, and requires faster public reporting of vacancies and violations.
Extends the Hatch Act (the ban on partisan political activity by federal employees) to cover the Executive Office of the President, the Office of the Vice President, and other White House offices, and gives the Office of Special Counsel exclusive rulemaking and subpoena-enforcement authority over those rules.
Requires the Comptroller General to study and report to Congress on reimbursable political events held at the White House since 1997 and recommend how to define and enforce rules on such events.
Requires every noncareer presidential and senior White House appointee to sign a binding ethics pledge that imposes a lobbyist-gift ban, recusal duties, and a multi-year revolving-door lobbying ban, with limited public waivers and enforcement through debarment or civil suit by the Attorney General.
Requires major-party presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and sitting Presidents and Vice Presidents, to submit their income-tax returns for the most recent 10 years to the Federal Election Commission, which must make them public, and authorizes the IRS to provide the returns if not submitted.
Creates an Inspector General for the Executive Office of the President and requires evaluations of how classified material is handled within the Executive Office of the President.
Requires federal campaign committees to report foreign-government contacts offering campaign help to the FBI and the FEC, and requires the FBI to report annually to the intelligence committees on those notifications.
Broadens the ban on foreign-national involvement in U.S. elections to cover promises and indirect help and to reach state and local ballot initiatives and referenda, while protecting journalism and lawful political expression by noncitizens present in the U.S.
Extends campaign-finance disclosure, disclaimer ('paid for by'), and public-record rules to paid internet and digital political ads, requires online platforms to keep a searchable public database of political-issue ads, and tightens disclaimer clarity standards.
Limits agencies' ability to move federal jobs out of the competitive civil service into at-will categories by capping such conversions at 1 percent of an agency's workforce per presidential term and requiring employee consent for individual transfers.
Makes it a federal crime to coerce federal employees to attend or contribute at certain political conventions, while allowing official government travel.
Requires the President to create and update every 90 days a public, searchable database of White House and vice-presidential residence visitor logs, with narrow exceptions for privacy, law enforcement, and national security.
Makes a person convicted of bribery, fraud, embezzlement, insider trading, wage theft, tax evasion, or similar corporate crimes committed while a company CEO ineligible for executive-branch appointment, and removes anyone already serving who would be barred.
Expands the criminal conflict-of-interest recusal rule so an executive-branch official must step aside from matters involving organizations he served in the prior 4 years, is an active participant in, or is a direct competitor of.
Rewrites the definition of who counts as a 'public official' for federal bribery law.
Who it helps · who it burdens.
Who it helps
- CongressGains tools to enforce subpoenas in court, to approve or end national emergencies, to obtain agency records and emergency-action documents, and to receive pardon, payment, and tax-return information about the President.
- federal whistleblowers and civil servantsGain broader protected-disclosure coverage, made-whole remedies including restored seniority and promotions, a route to sue in district court, and protection of competitive civil-service jobs from at-will conversion.
- the general public and journalistsGain public access to OLC legal opinions, White House visitor logs, presidential tax returns, and digital-ad disclosures, with protections for legitimate journalistic activity.
Who it burdens
- the President and Vice PresidentSubjected to new criminal-law coverage for bribery and contract profiteering, a ban on self-pardons, foreign- and domestic-payment prohibitions enforceable by disgorgement, mandatory tax-return and visitor-log disclosure, and a duty to spend appropriated funds.
- presidential and senior White House appointeesMust sign a binding ethics pledge with a lobbyist-gift ban, recusal duties, and a multi-year revolving-door lobbying ban, file public financial disclosures, report payments made to the President, and face new conflict-of-interest recusal rules.
- the Department of Justice and the Attorney GeneralMust turn over pardon-related prosecution materials to Congress, keep and report a quarterly log of White House contacts about investigations, publish OLC legal opinions, and bring civil enforcement actions for illegal payments to the President.
- acting officials and agencies filling vacanciesFace new limits on who may serve in an acting capacity in Senate-confirmed jobs and for how long, plus faster public reporting of vacancies.
- White House and Executive Office of the President staffNewly brought under the Hatch Act ban on partisan political activity and subject to oversight by a new Inspector General for the Executive Office of the President.
- registered lobbyists and foreign agentsBarred from contributing to legal-expense funds for the President, Vice President, or political appointees, with fines for prohibited contributions.
- online platforms and digital political advertisersMust apply disclaimer and disclosure rules to paid internet and digital political ads and maintain searchable public databases of political-issue advertising.
Who backs it
- the U.S. TreasuryReceives disgorged foreign emoluments, returned illegal payments to the President, and civil penalties collected under the Act's enforcement provisions.