Your one-stop destination for political reform, government ethics and accountability news and updates from a nonpartisan perspective.
Today, Issue One is proud to announce that its first-of-a-kind ReFormers Caucus — the country’s largest coalition of former members of Congress, governors and Cabinet officials ever assembled to advocate for solutions to fix our democracy — has recruited more than 200 Republican and Democratic former elected officials to its cause. The latest five members added to the RFC include
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This week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that it revoked the dark money group Americans for Job Security’s tax exempt status. The announcement followed a complaint from Issue One and the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) against the organization. Americans for Job Security was a tax-exempt “business league” that spent tens of millions of dollars influencing elections while keeping its donors secret, but
Read MoreIn response to the House Ethics Committee’s statement today on the personal accountability of members of Congress that leave office after having paid harassment settlements with taxpayer money, as well as reform of the Congressional Accountability Act, Issue One Executive Director Meredith McGehee issued the following comments: “Any time the House Ethics Committee chooses to enforce the ethics rules and
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The bipartisan ReFormers Caucus is proud to announce that it now includes members from all 50 states! Since its inception just three years ago, this group — former members of Congress, Cabinet officials and governors from both parties — has recruited 196 champions of reform who bring centuries of combined political experience to fix dysfunction in Washington. The ReFormers’ nationwide
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In response to the release of thousands of Russian Facebook ads to the American public, Issue One Executive Director Meredith McGehee issued the following statement: “If online ad disclosure requirements had been law, we would have already seen these ads in near real-time and that some were paid for in rubles. And law enforcement officials would have seen they were
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In light of the Senate Ethics Committee severely admonishing Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) for ethics violations, Issue One Executive Director Meredith McGehee issued the following statement: “It is a refreshing change of pace to see a rare show of public action from the Senate Ethics Committee, which often feels more like a black hole where allegations go to die. And
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Issue One ReFormers Caucus Co-chair Amb. Tim Roemer (D-IN) issued the following statement in response to White House Office of Management and Budget Director and former member of Congress Mick Mulvaney’s admission that campaign contributions were a requirement for meetings with his congressional office. “Sadly, we have yet another candid example of the wretched pay-to-play system in Washington, DC. Director Mulvaney advised
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Momentum is gaining for the Honest Ads Act. Last week, two new sponsors—one Republican and one Democrat—signed on to this bill to address the problem of foreign interference in our elections. That brings the total number of sponsors of the Honest Ads Act in the House to 18, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. The tech industry has seen a
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A bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate that would save taxpayers nearly $900,000 a year and increase political transparency has won over more sponsors than any other time since it was first introduced in 2003. With Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), John McCain (R-AZ) and Tina Smith (D-MN) recently joining as official cosponsors, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act (S. 298)
Read MoreUpdated June 15, 2018. Republicans and Democrats in Congress continue to support the bipartisan, bicameral Honest Ads Act to begin protecting U.S. politics from foreign disinformation campaigns by implementing a disclosure system for paid, online political advertising closely modeled on longstanding Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules for paid advertising on television and radio. The Honest Ads Act (H.R. 4077) list
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