Our Story

Issue One Is Positioned to Seize the Moment

American democracy is in crisis. Congress is gridlocked. Special interests are running Washington. Dark money is flooding our elections. Politicians are picking their voters through gerrymandered districts. Our politics are polarized, and we can’t get anything done. 

The public’s desire to disrupt the status quo in Washington is strong, and four in five voters polled about the 2018 election supported bipartisan political reforms — including 85% of Democrats, 81% of independents, and 78% of Republicans.

The time is right: That’s why Issue One is building a movement to usher in an era of systemic crosspartisan political reform.

An Honest Broker on Capitol Hill

Since our founding in 2014, Issue One has been creating the political climate to win game-changing crosspartisan reforms at the federal level. 

There is no silver bullet to revitalize our democracy. But there is a single path — galvanizing the public and elected leaders around a host of important and achievable solutions like securing our elections, ending gerrymandering, and reforming campaign finance laws. 

At Issue One, we are leveraging our reputation as an honest and crosspartisan broker to: 

• Promote transparency and stronger enforcement of campaign finance laws 
• Reinvigorate Congress through rules changes and rebuilding the support systems representatives and senators need to do their jobs
• Secure our elections against foreign interference
• Increase small-donor participation in funding political campaigns

Building a Winning Constituency for Change

Issue One’s strategy is unique among reform groups because of our crosspartisan approach. No major political reform has passed Congress without bipartisan support in the past 70 years. It takes more than one party to win lasting change. That’s why all of the bills we champion are conceived of, and advanced, with buy-in from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. 

Key to our crosspartisan movement are our initiatives and programs.

• Our ReFormers Caucus leverages insights from the halls of power 
• We launched the Fulcrum, a first-of-its-kind independent news hub for democracy reform
• Our groundbreaking research establishes ourselves as credible experts on needed reforms
• Our Don’t Mess With US project works to address the national security emergency that is foreign election interference
• Our Rebuild Congress Initiative, in partnership with the Harvard Negotiation Project, brings crosspartisan power to improve the legislative brach, and was critical in the creation of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress

This is what makes Issue One the leading crosspartisan political reform group in Washington.

Converting New Power into Legislative Wins

All of our work is aimed at creating the energy and environment necessary to move political reform legislation through Congress. To that end, we have: 

• Worked with senators from both parties to pass the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, a commonsense transparency measure that had languished for 15 years
• Crafted the Honest Ads Act (HAA) to prevent foreign disinformation campaigns and recruited 39 Republican and Democratic sponsors, including three senators
• Helped draft the bipartisan Political Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA) to close dark money loopholes and end political slush funds in Congress
• Promoted the leading bipartisan reform legislation to overhaul the broken Federal Election Commission
• Helped secure $250 million in funding to protect our elections in 2020

For five years, Issue One has been creating and preparing for this moment. The wins we’ve had on transparency and election security are just the beginning. We are poised to help create the most productive reform era in a generation and achieve the political reforms needed to restore our democracy. 

Learn more about Issue One’s legislative work.

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