The PledgeAsk us the hard question first
These are the questions we expect, answered before anyone has to ask twice.
Isn't this secretly partisan?
Check the Rules. Every issue we test has to clear 70% national support and 60% support inside both major parties, verified in independent polling. We've already rejected a popular issue for failing that exact test: ending presidential immunity polls at 61% nationally, but only 32% of Republicans agree, so it's rejected and published on On Deck with the same visibility as anything that qualified.
Isn't a stock-trading ban just an anti-corruption talking point for one side?
No. Every independent poll we found puts support for a congressional stock-trading ban above 85% in both parties, across bills sponsored by members of both parties, currently past committee in both chambers.
Universal background checks are a gun-control position. Why is that on your list?
Because it clears every test, including the party floor, in every poll we found going back over a decade. We call it what the bill text calls it: closing the background-check exemption for private and gun-show sales, not a broader label that isn't in the actual legislation. If the data ever stopped supporting it, it would come off the list the same way any Plank would.
Are you just going to water down your standards once a Plank you like fails?
Term limits require a two-thirds supermajority to pass, the hardest bar of anything we've tested. We're not lowering that bar to make it easier, and we're not lowering the polling bar to make a favorite issue qualify sooner. The universal background checks Plank is the clearest test of that promise: if it ranks as the strongest evidence in the slate when the Review Window opens, it goes in, whatever the political heat.
Isn't asking a nominee to promise compliance under oath a litmus test?
Asking an official to promise to follow the law isn't a litmus test. It's the job description. The oath already exists. We're checking they mean it, and only for the office responsible for carrying out a Plank that's already been enacted through the normal legislative process.
What happens if a hostile Congress buries a Plank inside unrelated legislation?
That's not a Plank vote, and it never gets graded as one. See the Report Card's clean-vehicle rule. Signers are never forced to choose between breaking the Pledge and voting for an unrelated rider.
Who runs this?
Short bio pending. We'd rather publish it once it's written well than rush a placeholder, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.
Does AI help build this?
Yes. AI tools help one person run this. Every word is human-approved and every claim links to its source. Audit us.
Adopted publicly, before launch, permanently
- Open ledger before the first dollar. Financial transparency infrastructure exists before fundraising does. Every dollar in and out, published.
- Compensation policy before the first dollar. Written, public, and boring, adopted before there is anything to pay anyone with.
- No endorsements. No candidate money. Ever. The Pledge grades; it does not pick. Not a dollar to or from any candidate or party.
- AI transparency. AI is used openly as a tool, with a human deciding everything that ships. No synthetic supporters, no bot amplification, no inflated anything: published policy, standing invitation to audit.
- Real numbers only. Signature counts, finances, reach: actual figures, prominently displayed, especially while they are small.
- No paid candidate-specific communications until the legal structure to do them correctly exists, reviewed by election counsel.
- No one is load-bearing. The movement is designed to outlive every individual in it, including its founder.
- The founder will never be a candidate. For any office. This movement is not a launchpad, an audition, or an exit ramp into politics.
How AI is actually used here
AI tools help draft copy, research polling and legislation, and organize the evidence behind every dossier on this site. A human reads, checks, and approves everything before it publishes. No AI-generated persona ever speaks as if it were a person. No engagement, follower count, or signature on this site is synthetic or purchased.
Every factual claim on this site links to its source. If you find one that doesn't, or one where the source doesn't say what we claim, tell us. That's not a hypothetical invitation. We mean it literally: audit us.
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