The Accord
Invites congressional candidates from both parties — or no party — to commit to competitive elections, fiscal responsibility, and accountable institutions.
Explore the AccordRestore Public Trust in Government. Learn More about the Initiative
We firmly believe that much of the current dysfunction in Congress can be fixed by electing and empowering a critical mass of lawmakers willing to put country before party and reject business as usual. This belief animates the Transformative Leadership Initiative, a flagship effort of New Statecraft Institute to encourage and reward the reformers that our nation desperately needs.
The Initiative rests on two pillars. First, the Transformative Leadership Accord offers a framework for essential governance reforms. The Institute worked to craft proposals that enjoy the broadest public and expert support and have the greatest potential for enactment — to produce quantum improvements in government performance. Second, the Transformative Leadership Scorecard will recognize those members of Congress who work across the aisle to advance the critical reforms prescribed by the Accord, during a given two-year session of Congress.
Together, these tools can change the incentives that drive Washington. Bold candidates will campaign on a reform agenda; effective legislators will be recognized for delivering results, and voters, journalists, and NGOs will be able to separate the genuine reformers from those who merely claim the label.
We hope the content of the Accord will evolve with each election cycle as several of these high-priority reforms are achieved through legislation. The Initiative also intends to produce model legislation to enact the reforms prescribed by the Accord. But the immediate objectives of the Initiative are to stimulate national discussion of these proposed reforms, and to inspire citizens to demand that every candidate seeking to represent them in Congress should commit to the Accord as a vital first step toward urgently needed legislative action.
We firmly believe that much of the current dysfunction in Congress can be fixed by electing and empowering a critical mass of lawmakers willing to put country before party and reject business as usual. This belief animates the Transformative Leadership Initiative, a flagship effort of New Statecraft Institute to encourage and reward the reformers that our nation desperately needs.
The Initiative rests on two pillars. First, the Transformative Leadership Accord offers a framework for essential governance reforms. The Institute worked to craft proposals that enjoy the broadest public and expert support and have the greatest potential for enactment — to produce quantum improvements in government performance. Second, the Transformative Leadership Scorecard will recognize those members of Congress who work across the aisle to advance the critical reforms prescribed by the Accord, during a given two-year session of Congress.
Together, these tools can change the incentives that drive Washington. Bold candidates will campaign on a reform agenda; effective legislators will be recognized for delivering results, and voters, journalists, and NGOs will be able to separate the genuine reformers from those who merely claim the label.
We hope the content of the Accord will evolve with each election cycle as several of these high-priority reforms are achieved through legislation. The Initiative also intends to produce model legislation to enact the reforms prescribed by the Accord. But the immediate objectives of the Initiative are to stimulate national discussion of these proposed reforms, and to inspire citizens to demand that every candidate seeking to represent them in Congress should commit to the Accord as a vital first step toward urgently needed legislative action.
The Initiative
Change the incentives that drive Washington.
The Scorecard
Recognizes federal lawmakers who champion the Accord's agenda for reform during a two-year term of Congress.
See the ScorecardThe Transformative Leadership Accord
A Framework for Practical Governance Reforms
Citizens’ trust in government has collapsed and restoring it will require fundamental changes. Our republic depends on fair and competitive elections, accountable democratic institutions, and transformative leaders who put problem-solving ahead of partisanship. Congress must stop spending money it doesn’t have, reduce conflicts of interest, and fix the rules that shape how government works.
The candidates signing this Accord do not necessarily support every item in it. But each signatory understands and agrees that electing a critical mass of reform-minded lawmakers is essential to producing a federal government that is capable of addressing the challenges that have long defied solution.
- Support a constitutional amendment empowering Congress to restrict campaign contributions and expenditures, but with federal courts retaining authority to invalidate any regulation whose substantial effect or evident purpose is to disadvantage challengers
- Require states to use non-partisan commissions to create Congressional Districts (instead of incumbent politicians with conflicts of interest)
- Make Election Day a national holiday to maximize citizen participation. (This can be achieved at no additional cost to employers or taxpayers by moving an existing national holiday like Presidents’ Day to November.)
- Force Congress to face reality by requiring use of the lowest consensus baseline forecast for economic growth (rather than an optimistic one) when enacting an annual budget.
- Require the inclusion of all costs (including interest) in making official federal budget projections on all proposed new spending or tax cuts
- Expand the budget window from 10 to 20 years, to end budget gimmicks that shift true costs to the budget outyears
- Compel transparency about the Social Security benefits Americans can actually expect to receive based on credible projected revenues
- Prohibit Members of Congress and their spouses from buying or selling individual stocks while in office, apart from an annual re-adjustment period each January
- Require periodic rotation of seats on the most powerful committees, to increase fairness and avoid the corrupting influence of entrenched power
- Support term limits and age caps on newly elected Members
- Reform the Insurrection Act (under which the president can deploy the armed forces on American soil) by allowing a simple majority in both houses of Congress to immediately override its use
- Prohibit a President from pardoning members of his or her own administration or family
- Support an age cap of 75 years (as of Inauguration Day) on anyone standing for election or re-election as President
- Establish a binding code of conduct (including disclosures of potential conflicts of interest) on Supreme Court justices in the same manner as members of Congress and Cabinet officials
- Require the Chief Justice to be chosen by his or her colleagues annually (rather than being unilaterally appointed by a president for a life term)
- Support a 16-year or 18-year term limit for newly appointed Justices, with eventually regularized appointments in the first and third year of a president’s term. (This reduces the incentive for a President to nominate young unproven candidates who might then serve for decades and into senility.)
The Scorecard
Rewarding results
The Transformative Leadership Scorecard will recognize federal lawmakers who champion the Accord's agenda for reform during a two-year term of Congress. In an environment that too often rewards gridlock, the Scorecard is designed to reward results.
The inaugural Scorecard will be published in 2028, at the conclusion of the next session of Congress.
Take Action
Join the movement.
Leaders and citizens across the country are uniting behind a better way forward.
All congressional candidates are invited to affirm the spirit of the Accord as a framework for urgently needed legislative actions.
For candidates
Signatories affirm the spirit of these proposals as a starting point for urgently needed legislative action; they need not support every item.
For citizens
Get updates about the Initiative and see which candidates have signed the Accord.
New Statecraft
A flagship project of New Statecraft Institute.
New Statecraft Institute conducts resolutely independent research and analysis of federal policy, generates unique insights, and offers bold prescriptions for achievable reforms. We equip transformative leaders with tools to break gridlock in Washington and implement the fundamental changes required to restore citizens' trust in government.