This article was first published Aug. 6, 2026, on Medium and in The Existentialist Republic.

Statutory sources for a model bill aimed at official trading on nonpublic government information.

The Make Corrupt Politicians Pay Act is model state legislation. Its five operative ideas are familiar to securities and public-corruption counsel: full disgorgement of trading profit, treble damages for contemporaneous traders, civil fines up to three times profit, felony grading by dollar amount, and pension forfeiture on conviction. Liu v. SEC approved fund-routed disgorgement; antitrust supplies the treble multiplier; Exchange Act § 21A already keys civil fines to triple profit; state theft codes grade by amount; Pennsylvania and New York already forfeit pensions after related convictions.

Updated October 1, 2026.

The proposal is presented as a bill memo mapping each section to enacted precedent. Its distribution list—legislators, governors, and party chairs—is described as legislative process rather than fundraising material.

Mesa v. California addresses the removal and immunity question: an on-duty federal employee remains subject to state law when the charged act serves no lawful federal duty. Personal securities trading is not a federal duty. The point is considered alongside the ex post facto limit, which permits only a forward-looking effective date.

The Make Corrupt Politicians Pay Act is a complete model state bill that makes public officials return the profit they earn trading on nonpublic government information, and the campaign funding its delivery to 1,580 offices is live today. The full statute, the budget, and the mailing plan are one link away: https://gofund.me/f62f9e8ec

The same five lines the campaign page uses state the act:

  • Disgorgement: the full profit goes back.

  • Treble damages: the traders harmed collect three times their losses.

  • Civil fines run up to three times the profit.

  • Felony charges scale with the dollar amount.

  • A convicted official loses the public pension.

A victims restitution fund pays the people harmed before the state keeps a dollar.

Each of the five sections exists in current law and is enforced somewhere right now: the Supreme Court approved fund-routed disgorgement in Liu v. SEC, antitrust law supplies the treble multiplier, section 21A of the Securities Exchange Act already sets fines at three times the profit, the states grade theft by dollar amount in their own codes, and Pennsylvania and New York forfeit pensions on conviction under current law. You can even check the drafter’s notes, which map every section to its source, and the sources answer the quiet question a reader asks, whether any of this can happen.

This campaign prints the act and mails it to each and every Democratic legislator in the sixteen states where Democrats control both chambers and the governorship, while email carries the same package to Democratic legislators in the other thirty-four states and both channels reach the 24 Democratic governors and the 57 state party chairs. The budget, the accountability terms, and the complete statute appear on the campaign page at the link above, and The Existentialist Republic publishes the record afterward, office by office: received, filed, declined, or unanswered.

Objections arrive quickly, and each answer below is written so you can easily repost it word for word.

“This is performative. It will never pass.” Federal bills stall because passage needs votes Democrats do not have. This one is a state bill. Democrats control both chambers and the governorship in sixteen states, which means introduction the day a session opens and a floor vote soon after without one Republican. Nothing performative about it and not a single excuse available for voting no.

“Federal officials are immune to state law.” No statute says so. The immunity courts recognize covers a federal officer performing a lawful and constitutionally valid federal duty, and the Supreme Court held in Mesa v. California that an on-duty federal employee still answers to state law when the act itself serves no such duty. Trading stocks appears in no official’s duties. Same as a DUI: the job changes nothing about the charge.

“This is just a bill aimed at Trump.” The act names no one and takes effect only for conduct after passage. The same sections govern both parties, federal officials along with state and local ones, and the act reaches whoever chooses to trade on nonpublic information once the law exists.

“Why not prosecute the trades already in the news?” The Constitution bars punishment under a law that did not exist when the conduct occurred; the term is ex post facto. The act runs forward from passage. Officials file public disclosure reports for each transaction, and any matched purchase and sale within six months after enactment makes the profit recoverable on the public record alone.

“Fines let them off easy.” The opposite complaint arrives in the same threads: “Prison goes too far.” The act answers both at once: disgorgement recovers the gain, treble damages repay the traders’ losses, the restitution fund pays victims first, and intentional violations carry felony charges graded by amount. Neither remedy replaces the other.

The Existentialist Republic drafted this act because prosecuting financial crimes is far easier than prosecuting treason. We organized this mailing list because sixteen legislatures have democratic control and this is an opportunity to deliver for voters in a way that will not just be newsworthy, it will represent a historic turning point in US history. Delivery is the remaining step, and the campaign funds the delivery. And if this campaign gets a big enough response, we do the same thing for the next bill, and the one after, getting more sophisticated each iteration.