The PUBLIC TRUST Act

This Act may be cited as the "PUBLIC TRUST Act" (hereinafter, "the Act").

This Act shall take effect upon enactment and shall apply to all covered elected officials serving as of, or elected after, the date of enactment.

No salary adjustment under this Act shall take effect with respect to any Member of Congress until after an intervening election, as required by the Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the Constitution.

No salary adjustment under this Act shall take effect with respect to the President of the United States during the period for which the President has been elected, as required by Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution.

Upon taking the oath of office, and throughout their term of service, all covered elected officials shall be required by statute to place all personal investment holdings into a qualified diversified trust, administered exclusively by an independent, federally approved third-party administrator.

Such trust shall be limited to broad-market investment vehicles — including but not limited to funds indexed to the S&P 500. No discretionary trading in individual securities shall be permitted while in office.

Failure to comply within ninety (90) days of taking the oath of office shall constitute a violation subject to civil penalties as prescribed by the Office of Government Ethics. Any willful violation shall constitute a federal offense.

Upon leaving office, covered elected officials shall be prohibited from accepting compensation as a member of a corporate board of directors or as a paid speaker at any event where remuneration relates to the official's former public office, for the following mandatory cooling-off periods:

• Members of the House of Representatives: Five (5) years.
• United States Senators: Ten (10) years.
• Vice President of the United States: Ten (10) years.
• President of the United States: Fifteen (15) years — the most stringent restriction applicable to any covered official under this Act.

(1) In General. No covered elected official, nor any spouse, domestic partner, or dependent child of a covered elected official, shall place, direct, or benefit from any wager, bet, event contract, or prediction market position on any platform regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or any successor agency, where the subject matter involves any outcome over which the official possesses material non-public information by virtue of their office, including but not limited to:

• the passage, failure, amendment, or timing of any piece of federal legislation;
• any military action, operation, strike, withdrawal, or deployment authorized or known to the official prior to public announcement;
• any regulatory decision, rulemaking, enforcement action, or agency determination;
• any foreign policy decision, treaty negotiation, diplomatic action, or sanctions determination; or
• any federal appointment, removal, or organizational change within the executive branch.

(2) Scope. This prohibition applies to all prediction market accounts held directly or indirectly, including accounts held in the name of a third party for the benefit of a covered official or their immediate family. The blind trust requirements established under subsection (a) shall apply to all prediction market and event contract accounts.

(3) Enforcement. Willful violations shall constitute a federal felony punishable by up to five (5) years imprisonment and civil fines of up to three (3) times the amount wagered or profited, whichever is greater, with severity determined by the Department of Justice. The Federal Election Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission shall share concurrent enforcement authority.

(4) Disclosure & Divestiture. Any covered official who holds any prediction market or event contract account at the time of enactment shall fully disclose and divest such accounts within ninety (90) days. Disclosure shall be filed with the Office of Government Ethics and made publicly available within forty-eight (48) hours of filing.

(5) Intent. No elected federal official shall profit, directly or indirectly, from information obtained by virtue of their office that is not available to the American public at the time such profit is made. This prohibition is a direct extension of the blind trust and conflict-of-interest principles established in subsections (a) and (b), and shall be interpreted consistently with those principles.

Congress finds that competitive compensation for elected federal officials is an investment in quality governance.

The total annual cost of all salaries prescribed herein — approximately $640 million — represents less than 0.01 percent of the current federal budget of approximately $7.4 trillion, equivalent to approximately $3.88 per year per taxpayer earning $80,000 annually.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the annual rates of pay for the following federal elected officials shall be as follows:

• Members of the United States House of Representatives: $1,000,000 per annum.
• Members of the United States Senate: $2,000,000 per annum.
• President of the United States: $5,000,000 per annum — of which the President may, at their sole discretion, allocate a portion to the Vice President. The combined compensation of the President and Vice President shall not exceed $5,000,000.

For each calendar day during which a lapse in federal appropriations results in a government shutdown, every covered elected official prescribed a salary under subsection (b) shall forfeit one full week's salary — calculated as the applicable annual rate divided by fifty-two.

Such forfeiture shall be permanent and irrevocable; no back pay, retroactive restoration, or supplemental compensation of any kind shall be authorized to offset amounts forfeited under this subsection.

The forfeited amounts shall be deposited into the Veterans Emergency Relief Fund (established under 38 U.S.C. § 2041, or such successor fund as designated by the Department of Veterans Affairs) within seventy-two (72) hours of the conclusion of each individual calendar day of shutdown — not at the conclusion of the shutdown period in aggregate. Deposits shall be made on a per-day basis, publicly reported to the Federal Register within the same seventy-two (72) hour window, and shall be irrevocable upon deposit.

This subsection shall apply equally to all covered elected officials regardless of party, chamber, or whether the individual official voted in favor of or against the measure that failed to prevent the shutdown.

Congress finds that, as of the date of enactment, approximately nineteen percent (19%) of all political contributions in federal elections derive from just three hundred (300) individuals and their families — constituting a disproportionate and anti-democratic concentration of electoral influence incompatible with the principle of equal political participation enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.

Independent expenditure-only political committees, commonly known as "super PACs," shall be subject to the following mandatory restrictions:

• (i) All contributions to any super PAC from a single donor in a single election cycle shall be capped at $50,000;
• (ii) All super PAC expenditures exceeding $500 shall be fully disclosed to the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours, including the true identity of the original contributing donor;
• (iii) No super PAC shall accept contributions from corporations, limited liability companies, labor unions, or any other non-natural-person entity;
• (iv) No super PAC shall coordinate directly or indirectly with any candidate, campaign, or political party.

Any super PAC operating in violation of these provisions shall be subject to civil and criminal penalties as prescribed by the Federal Election Commission.

All political expenditures made in connection with a federal election shall be fully disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, including the true identity of the original source of all funds.

The use of pass-through entities, shell organizations, nonprofit intermediaries operating under 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(4), or any other organizational structure designed to obscure, launder, or otherwise conceal the original donor's identity in connection with a federal election expenditure is hereby declared unlawful.

All entities making political expenditures exceeding $200 in a calendar year shall file complete donor disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission within 48 hours of such expenditure. No political expenditure of any amount shall be made anonymously or through untraceable means.

Violations shall be subject to tiered civil and criminal penalties, calibrated to the scale of the violation: civil-only for amounts under $10,000; civil and misdemeanor for amounts up to $100,000; and federal felony charges, with imprisonment of up to five (5) years, for willful violations involving amounts above $100,000. Civil fines may reach three (3) times the amount of the undisclosed expenditure.

No individual, corporation, labor union, or other entity shall contribute more than $3,000 in aggregate to any single federal candidate's authorized campaign committee in a single election cycle, inclusive of both primary and general election periods.

This limit is non-waivable, applies equally regardless of the candidate's party, incumbency status, or office sought, and shall not be circumvented through bundling, intermediary organizations, or any other mechanism.

The Federal Election Commission is directed to promulgate regulations enforcing this provision within sixty (60) days of enactment.

There is hereby established within the Federal Election Commission a voluntary public campaign financing program to be known as the Small Dollar Democracy Program, which shall operate in two phases as follows:

Phase 1 — Exploratory Period. Prior to formal declaration of candidacy, any prospective federal candidate may raise contributions subject to standard per-donor limits of up to twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) per individual donor. Such contributions shall be subject to all applicable FEC disclosure requirements. The exploratory period concludes upon the candidate's formal declaration of candidacy or upon certification as a Small Dollar candidate, whichever occurs first.

Phase 2 — Certified Small Dollar Candidacy. Any federal candidate who voluntarily and irrevocably certifies to the Federal Election Commission that they will accept no individual contribution exceeding two hundred fifty dollars ($250), and no contribution from any political action committee, corporation, labor union, or other non-natural-person entity, from the date of certification forward, shall be eligible to receive public matching funds at a rate of six dollars ($6.00) for every one dollar ($1.00) raised in qualifying small-dollar contributions.

Certification under this subsection is irrevocable for the duration of the applicable election cycle. All donors who contributed amounts exceeding $250 during the exploratory period are permanently prohibited from making additional contributions to the certified candidate's campaign following certification.

All participating candidates shall be identified as participants in the Small Dollar Democracy Program on all official ballots and in all Federal Election Commission public filings.

Funding for this program shall be drawn from the general fund of the Treasury and shall not exceed two billion dollars ($2,000,000,000) in aggregate per federal election cycle — representing less than 0.03 percent of the current federal budget.

It is the intent of Congress that no qualified candidate should be unable to seek federal office due solely to an unwillingness to accept large private contributions or special interest funding. This program is designed primarily to make it financially viable for talented Americans who have never held federal office to run for it — and win.

The Small Dollar Democracy Program is designed to provide a financially viable path to public office for candidates who wish to serve free of financial obligation to any donor, organization, or interest group.

If any provision of this Act, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remainder of this Act and the application of its provisions to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

The provisions of this Act are intended to be severable, such that the unconstitutionality of any single subsection — including but not limited to subsections under Section III — shall not invalidate the remaining provisions, which shall remain in full force and effect.