D21 President Fred Wertheimer To Receive The Prestigious Paul H. Douglas Award For Ethics In Government

Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer has been awarded the 2025 Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government.

The prestigious award is given annually by the University of Illinois System’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs. The award honors “government and private citizens who significantly contribute to the practice and understanding of ethical behavior and fair play in government.”

Past recipients include President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and John Paul Stevens, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Senators John McCain and Barbara Mikulski, Representatives John Lewis and Liz Cheney, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

University of Illinois System President Tim Killeen will present the award to Wertheimer on Wednesday, April 30, in a ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Wertheimer has been a national leader for five decades on ethics, campaign finance reform, and other democracy issues; has played a central role in the enactment of groundbreaking campaign finance, lobbying, and ethics laws; and has participated as a lawyer in the successful defense in the Supreme Court of campaign finance laws.

“This is an extraordinary and well-deserved honor for Fred who has spent a lifetime in pursuit of a democracy and government that is ethical, fair, and gives all citizens a voice,” Democracy 21 Chair Dominic Ucci said. “Over more than five decades, he has stayed laser-focused on ensuring our government and its officials maintain the highest standards of ethics and integrity.”

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has recognized Wertheimer for his contribution to ethics and democracy reform, once saying Wertheimer’s “perspective and unparalleled expertise is vital to our work to strengthen our democracy, find reforms that reduce the power and influence of corporate interests, and empower the voice of citizens.”

Pelosi also has said, “Everyone who loves our country is deeply in debt to Fred Wertheimer.”

“I am deeply honored to receive the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government,” Wertheimer said. “Senator Douglas was a Marine during World War II, an educator, an author, a reformer, and a true representative of the people. He understood the importance of public servants living up to the highest ethical standards and was recognized by his colleagues in Congress as ‘the conscience of the Senate.’ His lifetime of public service is an inspiration and model for us all.”

The New York Times recognized Wertheimer as “one of the most respected government watchdogs in Washington,” and The Boston Globe has called him “the legendary open-government activist.”

The Atlantic noted in a 2021 profile of Wertheimer: “Some things are worth half a century of effort. Fred Wertheimer has been campaigning for good government and against corruption in Washington since 1971.”

Wertheimer played a lead role in the successful efforts to enact the two most important campaign finance reform bills of the modern era: The Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974 (FECA), also known as the Watergate reforms, and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), also known as the McCain-Feingold soft money ban law.

Wertheimer has played a leading role in every congressional campaign finance reform battle since then, including the recent fights to pass the For the People Act/Freedom to Vote Act. That voting rights and campaign reform legislation came within two votes of enactment but was ultimately blocked by a Senate filibuster. It would have been the most consequential and transformational democracy reform enacted since the Watergate reforms of the 1970s.

He also played a lead role in the enactment of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, groundbreaking ethics and lobbying reform legislation.

Wertheimer has participated as a lawyer in every major Supreme Court campaign finance case since 1976, including Buckley v. Valeo, McConnell v. FEC, and Citizens United v. FEC.

Before founding Democracy 21 in 1997, Wertheimer spent 24 years at Common Cause, including serving as President of organization from 1981 to 1995.

Wertheimer is a recipient of the COGEL Award for outstanding service in the cause of open and democratic government, given by the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws, and has received honorary degrees from Colby College, Grinnell College, and the Claremont University Graduate School.

Wertheimer is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School and has served as a Fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy (1996) and as J. Skelly Wright Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School (1997).

His weekly newsletter Wertheimer’s Political Report is issued each Thursday.