Governing By Executive Order

President Donald Trump started governing the country by executive order from Day One of his second term. Since January 20, Trump has issued 137 executive orders. This compares with 162 executive orders issued by President Joe Biden over his entire four-year term and the 276 orders issued over eight years by President Barack Obama. In issuing this explosion […]

D21 Joins In Urging House Leaders To Approve OCC Board Overseeing House Ethics

Democracy 21 joined with Campaign Legal Center and 18 other good government partners to urge U.S. Representatives to approve the board of the Office of Congressional Conduct (OCC) so that the House of Representatives can conduct investigations and review allegations of misconduct. As Roll Call recently pointed out, House leaders have yet to appoint members […]

How SCOTUS Opened The Door To The Musk Era

It took Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, to illustrate to Americans just how dangerous our corrupt campaign finance system can be. This system allowed Musk to contribute more than $250 million to help elect Donald Trump in 2024, making him Trump’s single biggest financial supporter. In turn, President Trump made Musk his governing partner. Following […]

How The Opinions Of Two Supreme Court Justices Paved The Way For The Musk Era

  This op-ed is adapted from a piece that first appeared in Courier Newsroom.   How The Opinions Of Two Supreme Court Justices Paved the Way for the Musk Era By: Fred Wertheimer, President, Democracy 21, and Don Simon, Counsel, Democracy 21 It took Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, to illustrate to Americans just […]

Trump & GOP Ramp Up Voter Suppression Efforts

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on voting last month called Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections. Based on past performance, however, we can be confident that preserving and protecting integrity was anything but his goal. The Republican-backed SAVE Act, passed in the House on Thursday, falls into the same category. Like Trump’s executive order, it […]

Where Is Today’s Margaret Chase Smith?

Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) left a shameful and indelible mark on American history with his lies, vitriol, baseless attacks on innocent Americans, and “Red Scare” tactics that cast a dark shadow over the 1950s. But there’s another Senator from that era who deserves to be remembered for her stand against McCarthy: Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME). […]