American Promise is a cross-partisan organization bound by a singular mission: ending the crisis of money in politics by ratifying the For Our Freedom Amendment. Our constitutional solution would allow state and federal lawmakers to decide whether and how to regulate campaign spending, undoing a series of disastrous court rulings that shredded our country’s anti-corruption laws; allowed big donors to spend unlimited sums on elections; and unleashed a flood of dark money into federal, state, and local races.
You can learn more about our work in this video.
We commissioned polling from Ipsos, which found that 82% of voters believe money in politics is a threat to our elections; 79% oppose unlimited political spending; and 71% of voters support a constitutional amendment, with little difference between parties. We’re using this evidence of voter unity to drive action at both the state and federal level. Read more
Over the past year, we have tripled our volunteer engagement metrics, including letters to the editor, text messages, volunteer shifts, and actions taken. There is real appetite to act on this issue, and American Promise is harnessing that energy and steering our volunteers toward high-return activities.
Our proven, state-based strategy led to a landslide vote in a deep-red legislature: 20-4-5 in the Senate and 63-9-3 in the House. Our model has delivered results across the country, including in Maine, where we united lawmakers from both parties and 86% of voters around our solution. Twenty-two other states — as varied as Massachusetts and Montana, Alaska and Nevada, West Virginia and California — have formally called on Congress to introduce the amendment, or one similar to it, and send it to the states for ratification.
This year, we expanded our field operations from five to eleven states. We made significant progress in every single state we worked in, including resolutions being introduced in Oklahoma, Arizona, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania. In Oklahoma, the House passed a resolution calling for an amendment, and the vote was unanimous. We advanced early-stage resolutions, or forthcoming resolutions, in Texas, Wisconsin, and Ohio.
We have built relationships with members of Congress from both parties, and earlier this year, a group of U.S. senators reintroduced a call for a constitutional solution for this crisis. The text of that amendment resolution is straightforward and non-partisan and largely and largely aligned with our own vision for constitutional reform. More than three dozen members have already signed onto the amendment proposal, and this year, we are on track to exceed last year’s record number of meetings with Republicans on Capitol Hill. Additionally, every new member of Congress has received briefing materials on the For Our Freedom Amendment, and we recently took advantage of the August recess to have our constituent-supporters meet with their members of Congress for in-district meetings in Texas and Pennsylvania. This month, we will also bring state legislative leaders and key volunteers to Washington to urge their congressional delegations to advance the amendment.
In July, The Washington Post published a letter by our general counsel and chief program officer, Brian Boyle, challenging the idea that federal judges should exercise control over campaign finance law. Our CEO, Jeff Clements, published a high profile op-ed in the Boston Globe linking the American Revolution to the For Our Freedom Amendment. He was also quoted twice by POLITICO in July and later invited to discuss our mission on “How to Fix It,” a podcast by The Bulwark.
In a first for the organization, we filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court regarding NRSC v. FEC, a case expected to make headlines during oral arguments in December. The brief supports neither party in the lawsuit, and instead makes an originalist argument that equating money with free speech is a radical departure from founding-era philosophy — and the court should leave campaign finance to voters and their elected representatives. We don’t expect a single brief to undo decades of bad precedent, but it will strengthen the case for our proposed amendment, which rests on a strong, longstanding constitutional foundation.
