Where we stand
Accountability is a working-class issue
The typical American wage earner brings home about $48,000 a year (SSA, 2023). Every dollar Washington spends starts as a paycheck like that one. So when legislation runs to hundreds of pages of cross-references no working person has time to decode, when a representative's votes take real effort to look up, when waste rolls on because nobody is embarrassed by it, and when paid influence moves through the system faster than public knowledge does — that isn't an abstract "governance problem." It's working people paying full price for a government they can't see clearly.
We believe government at every level should be legible to the people who fund it. Not simplified into slogans — genuinely legible: written in plain language, voted on in the open, audited without mercy, and lobbied in the sunlight.
And we believe the only credible way to demand that standard is to live it. Everything we ask of government on this page, we pledge to do ourselves — publicly, on our Transparency page.
The four planks
What we support
1 · Plain-language legislation
We support requiring every bill to carry an official plain-language summary — what it does, what it costs, and who it affects — written for the citizen, not the specialist. A democracy's laws should be readable by the people expected to live under them. If a bill can't be explained plainly, that itself is information voters deserve.
2 · Publish the votes, plainly
We support making every representative's voting record easy to find, easy to read, and easy to compare — published promptly, in plain language, in one place. Voting records are technically public today; we believe they should be practically public: no expertise required, no digging required. Vote is Power — and knowing the votes is where that power starts.
3 · Fight waste like it's your money
We support aggressive, nonpartisan auditing of government spending, public reporting of what audits find, and real follow-through when they find it — because it is your money. Fighting waste isn't an argument for gutting the services working families rely on; it's the argument for protecting them. Every wasted dollar is a dollar that didn't reach a classroom, a clinic, or a veteran.
4 · Lobbying in the sunlight
We support prompt, complete, and genuinely accessible disclosure of lobbying: who is being paid, by whom, to influence what. Working Americans rarely have a paid advocate in the room. Until they do — and building that advocate is why this organization exists — they at least deserve to know who does.
The principle underneath
Sunlight is not an attack on government
We want to be clear about the spirit of this plank, because "accountability" is a word that gets weaponized. We are not anti-government, and we are not cynics. Most public servants work honestly at hard jobs. Transparency is how the honest ones get the credit they've earned — and how the public keeps faith with the institutions it pays for. Opacity, not scrutiny, is what corrodes trust.
This is also, deliberately, a nonpartisan plank. Both parties write unreadable bills. Both parties tolerate waste when it's theirs. Both parties take meetings the public never hears about. A movement of the working majority doesn't ask which team is in power before asking to see the books.
Our own pledge
We hold ourselves to what we ask of government
It would be easy to demand transparency from Washington and practice none of it ourselves. So here is the standard we are building this organization to meet — the same standard, applied to us.
They should publish spending. So will we.
We commit to publishing our budget, our financial statements, and what we raise and spend — so members can audit the movement that claims to speak for them.
They should publish votes. So will we.
One member, one vote. Members elect the board, and we commit to publishing summaries of board minutes so members can see how their organization is actually governed.
They should disclose pay and influence. So will we.
We commit to publishing leadership compensation and maintaining public ethics and conflict-of-interest policies — the disclosure we ask of officials, applied to ourselves.
They should count in the open. So will we.
We commit to publishing our member counts — real numbers, once there are numbers to publish. Until launch, you'll notice this site claims none. That's the standard working.
Side by side
The same standard, both directions
| What we ask of government | What we pledge at 120K or Less |
|---|---|
| Plain-language summaries of legislation | Plain-language explanations of every platform position, in the open, on this site |
| Voting records published promptly and readably | Member votes and board-minutes summaries published to members |
| Public audits and honest spending reports | Published budget, financials, and funds raised and spent |
| Full disclosure of paid influence | Published leadership compensation, ethics policy, and conflict-of-interest policy |
Our commitments are stated in full on the Transparency page. As an organization in formation, we publish each item as it comes into existence — and we invite members to hold us to it.
Common questions
Isn't most of this information already public?
Much of it is technically public — buried in records that take time, expertise, or persistence to use. Our position is that "public" should mean practically public: findable and readable by a person with a job, a family, and twenty spare minutes. The gap between technically public and practically public is where accountability goes to die.
Is "fighting waste" code for cutting programs?
No. We name it plainly on this page: fighting waste is how you protect the programs working families count on. An audit is not an attack on Social Security or the VA — it's a defense of every dollar meant to reach them. We also support protecting Social Security and Medicare outright; see the full platform.
Which party's accountability agenda is this?
Neither. Unreadable bills, tolerated waste, and quiet influence are fully bipartisan traditions. This isn't about political parties — it's about people, and about the roughly 9 in 10 wage earners under $120,000 (SSA, 2023) who pay for all of it.
How can you demand transparency before you've published anything yourselves?
Fair question — and the honest answer is that we're in formation, so our ledger is short. That's exactly why the commitments are written down now, before launch, where they can be quoted back to us. Judge us by whether each item appears as the organization does. That's what we'd tell a government agency; it's what we tell ourselves.
Hold power to account — including ours
Join the movement
Membership is free, and members get the vote, the records, and the receipts. Opens at national launch