You Want Power Back. Tell Americans What You Will Do With It.
An Open Letter to Democratic Leadership
Letter to America, No. 3 · Prompted by a conversation with my friend Larry Lee of Boulder, Colorado
On 3 November 2026 Americans decide whether to hand Democrats control of Congress. Before they vote, Democratic leaders owe them more than an agenda described to reporters: a written program of bills, sponsors, costs, and dates.
Five commitments that reach beyond restoring January 2025, and a deadline of 3 December 2026 to answer them.
To Hakeem Jeffries, Leader of the House Democrats; Chuck Schumer, Leader of the Senate Democrats; and the leadership of the Democratic Party:
Americans know that life costs too much. They see it at the supermarket, the filling station, and the pharmacy. They feel it when the health insurer raises the premium, when the rent climbs, and when another bill arrives before payday. On 3 November 2026, millions of them will vote for your candidates in the hope that you will change these things. They deserve to know exactly what you will change.
You have begun to answer. The New Democrat Coalition published its Affordability Agenda in February 2026, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus published ten bills in April 12. On 14 October 2026, House Democrats described a first-hundred-days agenda: restore the Affordable Care Act tax credits that expired in 2025, reverse the Republican Medicaid cuts, force votes to end the Iran war, undo the tariffs, and investigate corruption in the Trump administration 3. An agenda described to reporters binds no one. Voters need the program in writing: the bills, their sponsors, the order of business, the cost, and the date by which each should take effect.
A party that asks for power without stating what it will do with it asks voters for blind trust. Donald Trump demanded that trust, and you rightly condemn him for it. Hold yourselves to a higher standard.
Your own party set that standard. In 2006 Democrats campaigned on “Six for ’06,” with Senator Schumer among its authors 4. Once they won the House, they passed all six bills within the hundred hours they had promised, finishing on 18 January 2007 5. Voters could check every promise against the record. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump administration, showed what a movement achieves when it arrives with policies, personnel, and a plan to carry them out 6. Democrats must arrive as well prepared, and far more accountable.
The program must reach beyond undoing the latest damage. Trump inherited a political system in which concentrated wealth already commanded extraordinary influence. His administration has exploited its weaknesses and attacked the institutions capable of restraining a president. Defeating his candidates will leave that machinery intact. A program that merely restores January 2025 will restore the conditions that produced him 4.
I ask you to make five commitments.
1. Put a Concrete Household-Relief Program Before the Country
Name the legislation that will restore affordable health coverage, protect Medicaid, cut prescription costs, and curb the prices that dominant insurers, hospital systems, and pharmacy benefit managers set. Lay out a credible path to coverage that people can afford to use.
Set out your measures for food, housing, childcare, and energy. Address the tariffs that raise costs for households and businesses, unlawful price collusion, the shortage of housing, and the barriers that smaller producers face. Say which remedies can bring relief within months and which require years of investment.
Count the Iran war among those costs. Since the United States and Israel launched it in February 2026, disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has pushed energy prices to multi-year highs. Americans pay through gasoline, diesel, freight, and the cost of everything those fuels produce and move. The oil majors, meanwhile, expect a sharp rise in third-quarter profit from refining and trading 7. Americans pay for the war at the pump while the oil companies book its windfall. Pursue a negotiated end to the war, insist that Congress exercise its constitutional power over military action, and tell the public plainly what emergency relief can achieve and where it stops 8.
Protect paychecks as well as prices: enforce wage laws, punish wage theft, and restore workers’ power to bargain for a fair share of the value they produce.
For every major measure, state who benefits, how it works, what it costs, and when people should see results.
2. End Self-Dealing and Break the Hold of Concentrated Money
Voters have told you what they want fixed besides prices. A survey for Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank, found in July 2026 that affordability remains voters’ top concern and that government corruption ranks second 9. In October 2026 a Fox News poll found 60 percent of registered voters extremely concerned about government corruption, against 58 percent about inflation and high prices 10. The concern crosses party lines. In an August 2026 survey by Change Research, 46 percent of independents, 43 percent of Democrats, and 36 percent of Republicans named corruption among their three most important political issues 11.
Corruption now begins at the top. A Reuters investigation found that the President’s family made about $2.3 billion from four cryptocurrency ventures through April 2026, while outside investors lost roughly the same sum 12. Require the president and vice president to divest or place their holdings in a genuine blind trust. Bar them, members of Congress, and their families from issuing or promoting financial products while in office. Give Congress the right to sue to enforce the Constitution’s Emoluments Clauses, which forbid a president to accept payments from foreign governments and, beyond his salary, from the federal government or the states 8.
Restore the ownership disclosure that the Corporate Transparency Act required. In March 2025 the Treasury exempted American companies from reporting their real owners, an exemption the Government Accountability Office says covers over 99 percent of the entities that once had to report 13. Anonymous shell companies sustain the kleptocracy that Anne Applebaum, the historian and journalist, describes, in which rulers bind themselves together through money rather than ideology 14.
Commit to public financing of campaigns, so that candidates can compete without depending on wealthy patrons. Require disclosure of the original sources of major political spending. Enforce the law against unlawful coordination, and attach real penalties to conflicts of interest 15. Hold your own party, its officeholders, and its donors to the same standard.
Confront Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision that cleared the way for unlimited independent political spending, and the rulings built on it 16. Only a constitutional amendment or a differently composed Court can reverse it outright. Send an amendment to the states. Meanwhile pass the disclosure the decision itself upheld, by eight votes to one, and support the states that test what the corporations they charter may spend. On 3 November 2026, Montana voters decide whether to withhold that power altogether 17. Never make present progress wait on the hardest reform.
Reform taxation with equal resolve. The Government Accountability Office found that from 2014 to 2018, on average a quarter of profitable large corporations owed no federal income tax in a given year 18. Working households have no such latitude to arrange their affairs. Past losses and legitimate credits explain some cases; they do not show that the system distributes obligations fairly.
Publish a program to curb profit shifting, review unjustified tax preferences, strengthen minimum taxation, and prosecute sophisticated evasion. Show who gains from existing concessions and what the public receives in exchange.
3. Restore Enforceable Limits on Presidents and Accountability for Courts
Use congressional oversight to establish what has happened to public money, government contracts, agency duties, and official records. Follow the evidence wherever it leads, protect witnesses and whistleblowers, and publish findings that citizens can examine.
Legislate limits on emergency powers, safeguards against political interference in prosecutions, and enforceable procedures that compel the executive to spend what Congress appropriates.
No statute can overrule Trump v. United States, the Court’s 2024 ruling that gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts 19. Only an amendment or a future Court can. More than 130 House Democrats cosponsor the Presidential Accountability Amendment, which Representative Joe Morelle reintroduced on 22 July 2025 20. Make it a party commitment and send it to the states.
Where the ruling leaves room, act now. Justice Department memoranda holding that a sitting president cannot be indicted are policy, not law 21. Pause the statute of limitations while a president holds office, declare a self-pardon void, and bring pardons under the bribery statute, as the Protecting Our Democracy Act proposed 22.
Address Supreme Court ethics, financial disclosure, recusal, and tenure. Distinguish what Congress can enact by statute from what requires an amendment.
Strengthen voting rights and fair representation. No government answers to voters when politicians can choose who votes or draw districts chiefly to protect themselves.
Bind a future Democratic president as firmly as a Republican one. These restraints protect the country from whoever holds the office.
4. Rebuild the Public Institutions That Protect People and Establish Facts
Medical research, disease surveillance, weather forecasting, environmental monitoring, and reliable statistics protect every household. Their destruction harms patients and the economy for years after the cuts leave the news.
In 2025 the administration froze or cut more than $3 billion in grants that the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation had already awarded, and the terminations stripped funding from 383 clinical trials then under way 2324. Account for everything lost: experienced staff, interrupted studies and trials, abandoned enforcement, damaged records, and services people can no longer obtain. Publish a funded recovery plan.
Protect researchers who report findings an administration dislikes. Require stated reasons and fair review whenever an agency withdraws research funding. Preserve public data. Rebuild a professional civil service, shielded from partisan retaliation and accountable for its performance.
Bring the same public purpose to technology. Require privacy protections, independent scrutiny of high-risk systems, and a meaningful appeal whenever an automated decision affects a person’s job, health care, credit, or public benefits. Americans finance technological progress through their taxes and supply its data through their lives. They deserve a voice in its direction and a share of its benefits.
5. Make Delivery Visible and Evasion Difficult
Publish your program for the first hundred days in writing: each bill, its sponsors, its committee, its funding, and its intended result.
Separate what you can achieve by controlling one or both chambers, through rules, oversight, appropriations, and investigations, from what requires the president, the states, or a constitutional amendment. Voters understand constraints. They deserve to know how you will work within them and how you will challenge them.
Report progress in public. When a measure fails, name the decision and the votes. When a proposal changes, explain why. When your own members resist, apply the same scrutiny to them.
The Deadline: 3 December 2026
Together, these commitments could begin a new American reconstruction: rebuilding the public capacity this administration has dismantled, and changing the arrangements that let wealth and presidential power escape public accountability.
I ask you to publish a substantive response to these five commitments by 3 December 2026, thirty days after the election.
Americans are entitled to more than sympathy for their difficulties. Tell us what you will change, what you will fight for, and how we will know whether you have kept your word.
Philippe Foubert
What You Can Do Next
Your representative and your two senators answer to you. Ask each of them, in writing, where they stand on the five commitments, and ask for a written reply by 3 December 2026. Open with one sentence of your own about what costs too much where you live: congressional staff weigh a personal message far more heavily than a form letter 25.
Copy the letter below, or download it as a Word file. Add your own sentence, then send it through each member’s contact form on their official website. Members answer mail from their own constituents.
Subject: Five commitments: will you answer by 3 December 2026?
Dear [Representative or Senator] [last name],
I live in [your town], in your [district or state]. [Write one sentence of your own: what costs too much where you live, and what it does to your household.]
Whatever the result on 3 November 2026, I want to know in writing what you will do with the power you hold. Please tell me by 3 December 2026 whether you will support each of these five commitments:
1. A household-relief program, published in writing, that names the bills, sponsors, costs, and dates for health coverage, Medicaid, prescription costs, housing, childcare, and energy.
2. An end to self-dealing in office: divestment or a genuine blind trust for the president and vice president, a ban on officials and their families promoting financial products, restored disclosure of companies’ real owners, and public financing of campaigns.
3. The Presidential Accountability Amendment to reverse presidential criminal immunity, a pause in the statute of limitations while a president holds office, a void self-pardon, and binding ethics and recusal rules for the Supreme Court.
4. A funded plan to rebuild medical research, public data, and a professional civil service.
5. Public reporting of progress: when a measure fails, name the decision and the votes.
A yes or no to each, with your reasons, is all I ask. I will judge your record against your answer.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Street address, town, ZIP code]
Sources
1. New Democrat Coalition, Affordability Agenda (newdemocratcoalition.house.gov). 11 February 2026. Proposals to lower five core costs: health care, housing, energy, family care, and household essentials.
2. Congressional Progressive Caucus, Progressive Caucus Announces ‘New Affordability Agenda’ (progressives.house.gov). 29 April 2026. Ten proposed bills on household costs, wages, and political money.
3. Associated Press, via ITV News, House Democrats plan a first 100-days agenda if they sweep to power in midterm elections (itv.com). 14 October 2026. The leadership’s announced priorities on health care, Medicaid, the Iran war, tariffs, and investigations.
4. Semafor, Democrats make the midterms about one big pitch: Lower costs (semafor.com). 2 September 2026. Reporting on the leadership’s affordability agenda and the criticism that it largely restores January 2025.
5. CBS News, House Dems Beat 100 Hours Clock (cbsnews.com). 18 January 2007. House Democrats passed the last of the six bills they had promised voters in 2006, with time to spare on their hundred-hour clock.
6. Heritage Foundation, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (static.heritage.org). Project 2025’s published policy blueprint, with its personnel and implementation strategy.
7. Reuters, Oil majors face spending test from Iran war windfall cash (reuters.com). 20 October 2026. Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz since February 2026, multi-year-high energy prices, and higher refining and trading profits.
8. National Archives, The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription (archives.gov). Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the power to declare war.
9. Third Way, Voters Want Accountability on Spending (thirdway.org). 30 July 2026. Survey by Third Way and Impact Research of 1,000 registered voters nationwide, late June 2026.
10. Fox News, Trump hits record-low 36% approval in Fox News poll amid inflation (foxnews.com). 14 October 2026. Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), 1,202 registered voters, 9 to 12 October 2026, margin of error ±2.5 points.
11. Change Research, Corruption Is Rising as A Top Voter Issue (changeresearch.com). 23 September 2026. 2,045 registered voters nationally, 8 to 13 August 2026, modeled margin of error ±2.3 points.
12. International Business Times, reporting a Reuters investigation, Trump Family Crypto Empire Made $2.3 Billion While Everyday Investors Lost the Exact Same Amount (ibtimes.co.uk). 2026. Reuters’ estimate, from corporate filings and blockchain data, of the family’s earnings from four crypto ventures through April 2026.
13. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Corporate Transparency: Treasury Should Address Gaps in Ownership Information Resulting from Expanded Exemptions (GAO-26-107967) (gao.gov). 29 May 2026. Treasury’s March 2025 rule exempted domestic companies and U.S. persons from reporting their real owners, covering over 99 percent of entities that previously had to report.
14. Anne Applebaum, Open Letters, Kleptocracy, Inc. (anneapplebaum.substack.com). 15 April 2025. Applebaum, author of Autocracy, Inc., on conflicts of interest becoming a normal part of the American system.
15. Brennan Center for Justice, Solutions for a Stronger Democracy (brennancenter.org). Structural proposals on public financing, corruption, executive power, the courts, Congress, and voting rights.
16. Supreme Court of the United States, via Legal Information Institute, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) (law.cornell.edu). 21 January 2010. The decision striking down limits on independent political spending by corporations and unions.
17. Daily Montanan, Montana Supreme Court dismisses constitutionality challenge to ‘The Montana Plan’ initiative (dailymontanan.com). 1 April 2026. Initiative I-194 would bar corporations and other artificial persons chartered in Montana from spending on candidates or ballot issues.
18. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Corporate Income Tax: Effective Rates Before and After 2017 Law Change (GAO-23-105384) (gao.gov). January 2023. On average 25 percent of profitable large corporations had no federal income tax liability in each year from 2014 to 2018.
19. Supreme Court of the United States, Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024) (supremecourt.gov). 1 July 2024. The Court’s opinion on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.
20. Committee on House Administration Democrats, Top Dem Reintroduces Presidential Accountability Amendment with 130+ Original Cosponsors (democrats-cha.house.gov). 22 July 2025. Rep. Joe Morelle’s proposed constitutional amendment to undo the immunity ruling.
21. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, A Sitting President’s Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution (justice.gov). 16 October 2000. Reaffirms the 1973 opinion that a sitting president may not be indicted or criminally prosecuted.
22. House Budget Committee Democrats, Protecting Our Democracy Act: Section-by-Section Summary (democrats-budget.house.gov). September 2021. Proposals to toll the statute of limitations for a sitting president, void self-pardons, bring pardons under the bribery statute, and enforce the Emoluments Clauses.
23. Brennan Center for Justice, The Cost of the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Research Funding (brennancenter.org). 14 May 2026. More than $3 billion in frozen or cut NIH and NSF grants, and the long-term costs.
24. JAMA Internal Medicine, Clinical Trials Affected by Research Grant Terminations at the National Institutes of Health (jamanetwork.com). 17 November 2025. 383 NIH-funded clinical trials lost funding, affecting more than 74,000 participants.
25. USA Today, via PressReader, Survey: Congress does care what voters have to say (pressreader.com). 13 February 2017. A Congressional Management Foundation survey of congressional staff: 92 percent said a personalized email from a constituent could sway an undecided member, against 56 percent for a form email.
Published 28 October 2026 at philippefoubert.com as the third of the Letters to America. The photographs marked CC BY 4.0 appear under that license; the others are US government works in the public domain. © Philippe Foubert 2026.