Thread by @WarrenDemocrat

🧵MEGA-THREAD: The Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act - by Senator Elizabeth Warren

Title I: Lock the Revolving Door and Increase Public Integrity (1/16)

📈 Ban individual stock ownership by Members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, senior congressional staff, federal judges, White House staff and other senior agency officials while in office. (2/16)

👁️ Apply conflict of interest laws to the President and Vice President through the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act, which would require the President and the Vice President to place conflicted assets, including businesses, into a blind trust to be sold off. (3/16)

💰 Require senior government officials and White House staff to divest from privately-owned assets that could present conflicts, including large companies and commercial real estate. (4/16)

⚖️ Apply ethics rules to all government employees, including unpaid White House staff and advisors. (5/16)

🤝 Require most executive branch employees to recuse from all issues that might financially benefit themselves or a previous employer or client from the preceding 4 years. (6/16)

💹 Create conflict-free investment opportunities for federal officials with new investment accounts managed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board and conflict-free mutual funds. (7/16)

🚫 Lifetime ban on lobbying by Presidents, Vice Presidents, Members of Congress, federal judges,
and Cabinet Secretaries. (8/16)

🛑 Multi-year bans on all other federal employees from lobbying their former office, department, House of Congress, or agency after they leave government service until the end of the Administration, but at least for 2 years (and at least 6 years for corporate lobbyists). (9/16)

📄 Require income disclosures from former senior officials 4 years after federal employment. (10/16)

🕴️ Prohibit companies from immediately hiring or paying any senior government official from an agency, department, or Congressional office recently lobbied by that company. (11/16)

💼 Prohibit the world’s largest companies, banks, and monopolies (measured by annual revenue or market capitalization) from hiring or paying any former senior government official for 4 years after they leave government service. (12/16)

🏛️ Prohibit current lobbyists from taking government jobs for 2 years after lobbying; 6 years for corporate lobbyists. Public, written waivers where such hiring is in the national interest are allowed for non-corporate lobbyists only. (13/16)

🦹 Prohibit corporate outlaws from working in government by banning the hiring of top corporate leaders whose companies were caught breaking federal law in the last 6 years. (14/16)

❌ Prohibit contractor corruption by blocking federal contractor and licensee employees from working at the agency awarding the contract or license for 4 years. (15/16)

🪂 Ban “Golden Parachutes” that provide corporate bonuses to executives for federal service. (16/16)

Title II: End Lobbying as We Know It (1/9)

🔖 Strengthen and expand the federal definition of a “lobbyist” to include all individuals paid to influence government. (2/9)

🔎 Create a new “corporate lobbyist” definition to identify individuals paid to influence government on behalf of for-profit entities and their front-groups. (3/9)

🕵️ Radically expand disclosure of lobbyist activities + influence campaigns by requiring all lobbyists to disclose any specific bills, policies + government actions they attempt to influence; any meetings with public officials + any documents provided to those officials. (4/9)

🛡️ End foreign lobbying by Americans by banning American lobbyists from accepting money from foreign governments, foreign individuals, and foreign companies to influence United States public policy. (5/9)

💲 Ban direct political donations from lobbyists to candidates or Members of Congress

💲 End lobbyist contingency fees that allow lobbyists to be paid for a guaranteed policy outcome.

💲 End lobbyist gifts to the executive and legislative branch officials they lobby. (6/9)

👍 Make congressional service sustainable by transitioning Congressional staff to competitive salaries that track other federal employees. (7/9)

👨‍🔬 Reinstate the nonpartisan Congressional Office of Technology Assessment to provide critical scientific and technological support to Members of Congress. (8/9)

💸 Level the playing field between corporate lobbyists + gov't by taxing excessive lobbying beginning at $500,000 in annual lobbying expenditures + use proceeds to help finance congressionally-mandated rulemaking, National Public Advocate + Congressional support agencies. (9/9)

Title III: End Corporate Capture of Public Interest Rules (1/13)

🔍 Require individuals and corporations to disclose funding or editorial conflicts of interest in research submitted to agencies that is not publicly available in peer-reviewed publications. (2/13)

⚠️ Prevent sham research from undermining the public interest by requiring that studies that present conflicts of interest to undergo independent peer review to be considered in the rulemaking process. (3/13)

🏛️ Require agencies to justify withdrawn public interest rules via public, written explanations. (4/13)

💼 Restrict negotiated rulemaking to stop industry from delaying or dominating the rulemaking process by ending the practice of inviting industry to negotiate rules they have to follow. (5/13)

📆 Restrict inter-agency review as a tool for corporate abuse by banning informal review, establishing a maximum 45-day review period, and blocking closed-door industry lobbying at the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. (6/13)

🧑‍⚖️ Limit abusive injunctions from rogue judges by ensuring that only Appeals Courts, not individual District Court judges, can temporarily block agencies from implementing final rules. (7/13)

⏲️ Prevent hostile agencies from sham delays of implementation and enforcement by using the presence of litigation to postpone the implementation of final rules. (8/13)

🏢 Create a new Office of the Public Advocate empowered to assist the public in meaningfully engaging in the rulemaking process across the federal government. (9/13)

👀 Encourage enforcement by allowing private lawsuits from members of the public to hold agencies accountable for failing to complete rules or enforce the law, and to hold corporations accountable for breaking the rules. (10/13)

💪Boost agency resources to level the playing field between corporate lobbyists + fed agencies by using proceeds of the tax on excessive lobbying + the anti-corruption penalty fees to help finance Congressionally-mandated rulemaking + facilitate decisions by fed agencies. (11/13)

⚖️ Reform judicial review to prevent corporations from gaming the courts by requiring courts to presumptively defer to agency interpretations of laws and prohibiting courts from considering sham studies and research excluded by agencies from the rulemaking process. (12/13)

⏪ Reverse the Congressional Review Act provision banning related rules that prevent agencies from implementing the will of Congress based on Congress’ prior disapproval of a different, narrow rule on a similar topic. (13/13)