The Drain the Swamp Act mandates ethics reforms for federal officials, limits congressional pay during government shutdowns, restructures Supreme Court appointments, proposes term limits, and strengthens campaign finance and voting rights laws.
Greg Landsman
Representative
OH-1
The Drain the Swamp Act is a comprehensive bill designed to increase government accountability and reduce conflicts of interest across all three branches. Key provisions include banning senior officials from trading individual stocks, establishing term limits for Supreme Court justices, and implementing stricter ethics and financial disclosure rules for the President and Congress. The Act also seeks to reform elections by proposing a constitutional amendment to overturn *Citizens United* and establishing nonpartisan redistricting standards nationwide.
Drain the Swamp Act Targets Insider Trading and Term Limits: 18-Year Supreme Court Caps and Congressional Pay Cuts for Shutdowns Proposed
The Drain the Swamp Act is a massive overhaul of how Washington operates, aiming to curb the influence of money and power across all three branches of government. At its core, the bill forces senior officials—including the President, Members of Congress, and Supreme Court Justices—to sell off individual stocks within 180 days to prevent them from profiting off non-public information. It also hits lawmakers where it hurts: their wallets. If Congress fails to pass a budget or hits the debt ceiling after 2026, every Member loses a day’s pay for every day the government is stalled. For the current term, that money is held in escrow, but eventually, these become permanent salary cuts, ensuring that a gridlocked D.C. has a direct financial cost for the people running it.
Bench Strength and Term Limits
The bill fundamentally changes the Supreme Court by ending lifetime appointments. New justices would serve a single 18-year term, with a predictable schedule of two appointments per four-year presidential term (Title III). This is designed to lower the political temperature of confirmations, as every president gets a fair shot at shaping the court. Additionally, the bill proposes a constitutional amendment to limit House members to nine terms (18 years) and Senators to three terms (18 years). While this could bring fresh faces to the Capitol, it also means losing experienced lawmakers who know how to navigate complex policy, potentially shifting more power to unelected staffers and lobbyists who don't have term limits.
Ethics and the Oval Office
For the executive branch, the bill closes several loopholes that have historically allowed presidents to operate with high levels of personal discretion. It makes self-pardons legally void and requires the Attorney General to hand over all evidence to Congress if a president pardons a close associate or campaign staffer (Title VI). It also stops the 'clock' on criminal statutes of limitations while someone is in office, meaning a president can’t just wait out the legal system until their term ends. Furthermore, it bans presidents and cabinet members from federal government contracts, ensuring they aren’t doing business with the very government they lead.
Campaign Cash and Voting Lines
To address 'dark money,' the bill requires corporations and unions to disclose any political spending over $10,000 within 24 hours and bans for-profit corporations from running PACs entirely (Title IX). On the ground, it seeks to end partisan gerrymandering by setting national standards for how districts are drawn, prioritizing 'communities of interest' over political party advantage (Title X). While these moves aim to make elections more competitive for the average voter, the new reporting requirements and redistricting rules will likely lead to a wave of litigation as courts and states figure out how to implement these strict new fairness tests.