Civic Impact Corps
Civic Impact Corps
Civic Impact Corps · The voice of “We the People” in Congressional oversight

Sign the pledge to renovate Congress ★

Congress is running an operating system built for 1789. Swapping out the people inside hasn’t fixed it, because the problem is the machine, not the operators. Join the Corps and put every candidate on the record.

15days until Election Day · Nov 3, 2026
Join the Corps Ask your candidate
Take the pledge

One question. Yes or no.

Every town hall, every campus visit, every campaign stop, every Instagram Live, every TikTok comment section, every email reply form. The script is one sentence. Don’t accept hedges. The point of the pledge is to make commitment cheap to give and expensive to break.

The script
“Will you co-sponsor the Congressional Renovation Amendment if elected, yes or no?”

Candidates who sign a commitment to co-sponsor the amendment once in office earn the CIC voting block. If both candidates in a race sign, the block is shared based on the preference of that state’s CIC members.

Pledge to join

Become a registered member

A million members is interesting. Ten million is structural. Sign up, then bring three people with you.

The CIC is nonpartisan. We’ll never sell your information.

What’s next after Nov 3?

The renovation runs in two stages

November 2026 isn’t the finish line. It’s the proof of concept: enough pledged candidates elected, enough field infrastructure built, enough independent voters mobilized that the renovation becomes a force the established parties have to negotiate with.

Stage 1 · Through Nov 3, 2026

Build the voting block

Organize millions of voters, especially Gen Z, the generation set to inherit the debt. CIC representatives in every state bring the draft amendment to every Congressional campaign.

Stage 2 · 120th Congress, year one

The transition Congress

The new Congress tests the proposed processes while still operating in the existing way officially, then refines the detailed changes to be finalized in the amendment.

Year two and beyond

A 21st-century Congress

Congress switches to the new processes and optimizes them. The following Congress operates in full conformance with the renovated version, with citizens involved in the decisions that affect their lives.

Why renovate

This isn’t idealism. It’s arithmetic.

Under every president, every party and every configuration of leadership, Congress has stayed below 25% approval for nearly two decades. When changing the players doesn’t fix the game, the game is the problem.

84% → 10%

Congressional approval in 1999, then in April 2026 (Gallup).

10,000 / ~40

Bills introduced each year versus laws passed. A bakery that delivered 40 of 10,000 cakes would be out of business.

2

People decide what 340 million Americans’ government works on: the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader.

$38.96T

National debt, about $115,000 for every American, including kids born today. Interest alone costs about $1 trillion a year.

45%

Americans who identify as Independent (Gallup 2026), the largest group in the country, with zero structural representation in Congress.

$277B

Severe-weather losses in 2024 (NOAA), about $5.3 billion a week. The federal budget doesn’t account for it.

Designed for · 1789
~38
members
~100
bills per year
3.9M
Americans
Running today
535
members
10,000+
bills per year
340M
Americans

Figures from Renovation of the People’s House, drawing on Gallup, NOAA and U.S. Treasury data current as of the manuscript date.

Our mission

Renovation, not revolution

When you renovate a 250-year-old house, you keep the foundation if it’s solid. Democracy, individual rights and the separation of powers stay. What needs updating is the plumbing, the wiring and the floor plan.

The Civic Impact Corps exists to define the blueprint for a 21st-century Congress and to coordinate “we, the people” in building it. The goal is a Congress that runs like a well-managed organization: following a plan, measured on outcomes, and satisfying the people who pay for it, which is all of us.

This doesn’t replace Congress. It replaces the two-boss veto on the democratic agenda with the actual preferences of actual Americans. More democracy, not less.

Tier 1

Legislative triage

Randomly selected, verified citizens review neutral bill summaries and help filter 10,000 bills down to an agenda Congress can actually work.

Tier 2

Major policy referendum

Decisions of real magnitude, such as multi-decade commitments or changes to Social Security and Medicare, get direct citizen endorsement first.

Tier 3

Ongoing accountability

An annual public performance report card for all 535 members, published and accessible to every American.

The blueprint

Three amendments, one package

The CIC pledge asks candidates to co-sponsor all three. Each fixes a distinct structural failure, and the failures interact. Fixing only one leaves the others to re-create the dysfunction.

Amendment 1

Congressional Term Reform

  • Four-year House terms, elected with the President, to end permanent campaigning.
  • Senators limited to two elected terms.
  • Applies only to people elected after ratification.
Read the full text

Preamble. Whereas the two-year House term forces continuous campaigning that displaces governance, and whereas the absence of Senate term limits has produced institutional calcification, the people propose this Amendment to align congressional service with effective representation.

Section 1 — House Terms. Representatives to the House of Representatives shall be chosen every fourth year, with elections held concurrently with the election of the President. The Twentieth Amendment’s provisions governing the commencement of terms shall apply, modified to reflect the four-year cycle established herein.

Section 2 — Senate Term Limits. No person shall be elected to the Senate of the United States more than twice. No person who has held the office of Senator, or acted as Senator, for more than three years of a term to which some other person was elected Senator shall be elected to the office of Senator more than once.

Section 3 — Application. Sections 1 and 2 shall apply to persons elected to the House and Senate after the date of ratification. No Senator serving on the date of ratification shall be barred from completing the term to which they were elected, nor from seeking one subsequent term.

Section 4 — Implementation. Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment 2

Congressional Procedural Reform

  • No single member can block a bill from reaching the floor.
  • The full chamber sets the legislative calendar by majority vote.
  • No committee punishment for how a member votes.
  • Proportional standing for Independent members.
Read the full text

Preamble. Whereas the concentration of agenda-setting authority in single members of leadership has displaced majority deliberation, and whereas Americans not affiliated with the two major parties are systematically excluded from institutional participation, the people propose this Amendment to restore majoritarian process and pluralistic representation in Congress.

Section 1 — Elimination of Single-Member Procedural Veto. No single Member of either House of Congress shall have unilateral authority to prevent floor consideration of legislation that has been reported favorably from committee or that has been requested for floor consideration by petition of one-third of the membership of that chamber.

Section 2 — Legislative Calendar. The legislative calendar of each House shall be established by majority vote of the full membership of that House. Modifications to the established calendar shall require the same.

Section 3 — Committee Assignment Protections. Committee assignments in either House shall not be withheld, reduced, or revoked as retribution for any Member’s vote on legislation or policy position. Disputes arising under this section shall be resolved through a process established by each House, which shall include independent review.

Section 4 — Representation of Unaffiliated Members. Members of either House who are not affiliated with a political party that holds majority or minority status shall be entitled to proportional participation in committee assignments, leadership procedure determinations, and the allocation of institutional resources, including staff and office budgets. Such Members shall have the right to form an independent caucus with institutional standing proportional to their representation.

Section 5 — Implementation. Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation. Each House retains authority to determine the rules of its own proceedings consistent with the provisions of this Article.

Amendment 3

Federal Fiscal Transparency

  • An annual plain-language report on the debt’s 5-, 10- and 30-year trajectory.
  • Every budget shows its projected effect on the debt.
  • Machine-readable and free to the public.
  • Transparency only: no mandated fiscal policy.
Read the full text

Preamble. Whereas the people are entitled to clear, timely, and honest information regarding the long-term fiscal trajectory of the federal government, the people propose this Amendment to establish constitutional standing for fiscal transparency, without prescribing particular fiscal policy.

Section 1 — Annual Fiscal Report. The Comptroller General of the United States shall annually publish a Federal Fiscal Trajectory Report stating, in plain language and uniform methodology, the projected national debt over five-year, ten-year, and thirty-year horizons, the principal drivers of that trajectory, and the assumptions on which the projections rest.

Section 2 — Required Disclosures in Budget Proposals. Every budget proposed by the President and every budget resolution adopted by either House of Congress shall be accompanied by a fiscal impact statement disclosing its projected effect on the national debt over five-year and ten-year horizons, prepared according to uniform methodology established by the Comptroller General.

Section 3 — Public Accessibility. The reports and disclosures required by this Article shall be published in machine-readable format and made freely accessible to the public.

Section 4 — No Substantive Fiscal Mandate. Nothing in this Article shall be construed to require any particular level of taxation, spending, debt, or debt-to-GDP ratio, nor to authorize any agency or court to compel Congress to adopt any particular fiscal policy. This Article establishes a transparency requirement only.

Section 5 — Implementation. Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation.

Term limits without procedural reform produce a faster carousel of members who still can’t get bills to the floor. Procedural reform without fiscal transparency produces a more functional Congress that still can’t tell the public what it’s doing to the debt. Fiscal transparency alone produces honest data that a calcified Congress can’t act on. The amendments are working drafts for public discussion and have not been introduced in Congress.

Get involved

Five things you can do before Election Day

None of these require you to become a politician, a policy expert or a full-time activist. You already know how to organize a fandom, a study group or a Discord. The skills are the ones you have. Only the target is new.

  1. Confirm your registration

    In every midterm cycle, the largest group of non-voters is people under 35 who meant to vote and weren’t on the rolls. Check your registration today, then make your plan to vote early or by mail. Check at vote.gov

  2. Join the Corps and bring three people

    Numbers are the entire mechanism. A voting block large enough to decide a race makes any candidate who refuses to co-sponsor the amendment a candidate who can’t win.

  3. Put the pledge in front of every candidate

    Show up to town halls, campus visits and campaign stops. Ask the one question and get the answer on the record. If 20,000 voters asked, a senator who wouldn’t take a meeting would suddenly find time. Numbers create access. Access creates accountability.

  4. Start or join a campus chapter

    Every major university in every state with a competitive race is an organizing hub. The model isn’t protest. The model is voter contact. Bring in your issue groups too: climate, housing, student-loan reform and every other group whose members vote.

  5. Run the message

    “Two people control what 340 million Americans’ government works on. That’s the whole problem.” It fits in a single caption. It’s true. Repeat it.

Our commitment

Nonpartisan by design

Same standard for every party

Accountability applies equally to every member. A Democrat who spreads disinformation faces the same scale as a Republican who does. The standard is professional conduct, not political position.

The pledge is open to anyone

Any candidate of any party, or no party, can earn the CIC voting block by committing to co-sponsor the amendment. If both candidates sign, members in that state decide how to share it.

A voice for the Independent 45%

Congress was designed for two parties. The renovation gives Independents real standing: committee access, proportional representation and floor procedures that don’t assume binary party loyalty.

Level 1

Documented public falsehood or contract violation: public correction and a mandatory record entry.

Level 2

Repeated or severe violations: formal censure, salary reduction, committee removal.

Level 3

Fundamental breach, such as election interference or corruption: grounds for removal, decided by independent retired federal judges, not party committees.

Members doing their jobs honestly, and many are, have nothing to fear. Accountability protects the honest ones by distinguishing them from the bad actors. The Civic Impact Corps does not endorse parties, and references to other organizations do not imply their endorsement.

The book behind the Corps

A manual for the generation holding the bill

Renovation of the People’s House is a diagnosis and renovation plan for the U.S. Congress, written by Robert Jastremski, a holistic systems engineer with a 55-year career and eight years lobbying members of Congress directly, with Stephen Matheny, college professor, innovator and futurist.

In 1969, humans landed on the moon because engineers were in charge of the engineering problem. The book applies the same whole-system thinking to Congress: find the failure points, design for them, and measure what matters. It covers the scoreboard Congress gets wrong, the case for an annual national business plan, employment contracts for members, and the 340-million-person brain trust Congress has no way to hear.

Watch the 3-minute video Video link: [insert YouTube URL]
Questions

Straight answers

Is the Civic Impact Corps up and running?

The CIC is in its founding stage. Right now we’re building membership, funded by donations and modest subscription fees, and recruiting representatives in every state to work with Congressional campaigns. The detailed citizen-participation roles will take practical shape once elected members commit to the amendment.

Does this replace Congress?

No. We still need representatives. In the 1700s, communication and travel limits meant representatives had to speak for the people they represented. That constraint no longer applies. The CIC adds a continuous citizen voice underneath elected members, the way shareholders stay involved after electing a board.

Why a constitutional amendment instead of a new law?

The next majority can reverse a statute. It can’t reverse a constitutional amendment. Ratification is hard by design, and that difficulty is what makes the reform durable.

Is this a left or right project?

Neither. Congress’s approval has stayed low under every configuration of power, which makes this a structural problem, not a partisan one. The fiscal transparency amendment, for example, deliberately takes no position on taxes or spending so people on both sides can support it.

How would citizens actually take part?

Members who want to serve complete a standard, resume-style profile so they can be contacted when their expertise is needed, for example on a team assessing a major climate-adaptation policy. Other roles include a small, randomly selected jury for rules-defying members and an online vote of all citizens to approve the annual national business plan.

The house is 250 years old

You didn’t break it. You’re the ones who can fix it.

The pipes are corroding. The wiring is a fire hazard. The floor plan no longer fits the family living in it. The foundation holds, and the renovation is overdue.

Sign the pledge