Today, CD-2 congressional candidate Jordan Wood will roll out a ‘New Declaration of Conscience for Congress’ in Skowhegan. This is a blueprint for fighting corruption in Congress and restoring public trust in our government. 

Skowhegan is the birthplace of Senator Margaret Chase Smith. In 1950, Senator Smith drew national attention for her ‘Declaration of Conscience’ speech, which denounced Joseph McCarthy and his infamous anti-communist crusade which targeted and harassed Americans for years. This was pivotal in stopping our government from harming citizens, and helping to restore public faith in America’s commitment to protect the rights of everyone. Today, with Congress failing to hold itself or Donald Trump accountable, we need to do that again.

Jordan’s reforms would stop Congressional members from trading stocks, end contributions from lobbyists with interests before the members, make members responsible for settlements for their own misconduct, end the $174k “death gratuity,” the Congressional pension, the member-to-lobbyist pipeline, and more. 

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A New Declaration of Conscience for Congress

Seventy-six years ago, a senator from Maine stood on the Senate floor and named what her colleagues would not: that the institution she loved had been corrupted by fear, ambition, and loyalty to party over country. Today, Congress faces a different but familiar betrayal of the public trust. Members trade on inside information, cash in on committee assignments, and walk out of office into lobbying firms that pay them for the access they built on the taxpayers’ dime. A new Declaration of Conscience is overdue. The next Congress must adopt one. What follows is a set of reforms — prescriptions to clean up corruption, end self-dealing, and restore the first principle of representative government: public service must never be a path to private enrichment, and the public trust, once broken, must be earned back.

IN CONGRESS:

1. Ban Financial Self-Dealing. Prohibit Members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from receiving SBA loans or grants, from owning or trading individual stocks or cryptocurrency, and from trading or wagering on online prediction markets, event-contract platforms, or any betting market whose payouts depend on political, economic, or policy outcomes. 

2. End Pay-to-Play Campaign Contributions. Prohibit Members from accepting contributions from lobbyists and PACs with interests before any committee on which the Member serves.

3. Close the Corporate Junket Loophole. Ban Members from accepting privately-funded travel from any entity with business before their committees, or from any organization affiliated with a registered lobbyist. No more “fact-finding” trips to resort destinations paid for by the industry’s members are supposed to oversee. 

4. Stop Leadership PAC Slush Funds. Apply the personal-use prohibition to every political committee controlled by a Member of Congress, and require that leadership PACs spend at least 75% of their funds on direct contributions to candidates, parties, and political organizations — not ski trips to the Four Seasons. 

5. Personal Accountability for Misconduct. Make Members personally responsible for paying all settlements arising from their own misconduct from day one — no Treasury advances, no secrecy, full public disclosure. If you harass someone at work, you pay for it yourself, and everyone knows about it. 

6. No Budget, No Pay. If Congress fails to pass its budget resolution by the statutory April 15 deadline or fails to pass all regular appropriations bills before the start of the fiscal year, the pay of Members of the offending chamber is held in escrow until the chamber does its job. 

7. End Taxpayer-Funded Self-Promotion in Every Form. Prohibit the use of official funds, in any form, for any mass communication to constituents — no mailers, no broadcast ads, no digital or social media ads, no mass emails, no robocalls. Taxpayer-funded communications are preserved only for their legitimate original purpose: direct, individualized responses to constituents who have contacted the office for help. 

8. Eliminate the Death Gratuity. End the nontaxable $174,000 payment to the families of deceased Members of Congress — a perk no other American worker receives. 

9. Eliminate the Congressional Pension. End the extravagant lifetime pension benefit for Members of Congress. Members should keep the same 401(k) match available to every other federal employee — and nothing more. 

10. Ban Foreign Government Lobbying of Congress. Prohibit all lobbying of Congress on behalf of foreign governments, foreign political parties, state-owned enterprises, and entities substantially funded or controlled by them, with no “commercial” or “disclosure-based” exemptions. Replace FARA’s toothless civil fines with real criminal penalties. The loyalties of those who have served the American people belong to the American people, not to the highest foreign bidder. 

11. End the Gerontocracy. Implement a new chamber rule: no Member over age 75 may serve as Speaker, hold an elected leadership position, or chair a standing committee. No American is barred from running. No sitting Member is forced out mid-term. But the accumulation of institutional power by those well past the age most Americans retire comes to an end. 

AFTER SERVING

1. Lifetime Lobbying Ban. Impose a lifetime ban on former Members of Congress becoming federal lobbyists, and prohibit the immediate family members of sitting Members from lobbying their Congressional offices. 

2. Lifetime Corporate Board Ban. Impose a lifetime ban on former Members of Congress sitting on corporate boards. 

ENFORCEMENT

1. Restore and Empower the Office of Congressional Ethics. Reestablish OCE as a fully independent body with subpoena power, protected funding, and the authority to investigate Members, senior staff, and violations of this Declaration. A code of conduct without teeth is a press release. This one must have teeth. 

Download Jordan Wood’s New Declaration of Conscience: