Republics rarely die by a single blow — they die when the safeguards fail one by one. This statute hardens those safeguards: no military force against the people, no secret police, no masked federal agents, a guaranteed peaceful transfer of power, and election results that must be certified as a matter of duty, not choice.
A president could plausibly claim the power to put troops on American streets, and courts often deferred to how the executive "characterized" the threat.Check it
Masked, unidentified federal agents could detain people, and domestic-intelligence programs could surveil lawful protest, worship, and association.Check it
The peaceful transfer of power and the certification of an election rested largely on norms and the honesty of officials — not on hard law.Check it
And the machinery of force answered, in the gaps, to whoever was willing to push past the unwritten rules.Check it
Troops against the people are void without a specific published finding — and protest, immigration, crime, disaster, and policy disagreement can never be recast as "invasion." Courts decide, not the executive's label.
No secret police. Federal officers using force must be identified; masked, anonymous force is unlawful and personally liable, without immunity.
The peaceful transfer of power is secured by law, and certifying a valid election is a ministerial duty — officials must do it; refusal is not an option they hold.
A soldier ordered to act against the people has a protected duty to refuse — the risk falls on the official who gave the unlawful order.
The executive could characterize almost any unrest as grounds for domestic military deployment, and courts tended to defer.Check it
No domestic deployment without a specific written finding naming the actual armed force, place, and hour. Protest, strike, immigration, ordinary crime, disaster, public health, or policy disagreement can never count — and a court voids the deployment without deferring to the executive's label. It auto-expires in 10 days absent a congressional vote; 30 days is the ceiling.
Domestic-intelligence programs surveilled lawful activity, and unidentified agents could seize people with no visible accountability.Check it
No secret or political police; no dossiers on lawful advocacy, worship, or association. Federal officers using force must show agency and a traceable ID. Masked, anonymous force is unlawful detention, and the officer and whoever ordered the concealment are personally liable without immunity. Institutions can't be wholly secret.
Military funding could roll on with little forced reconsideration by each new Congress.Check it
No military appropriation may run beyond two years; anything purporting to fund the armed forces permanently is void past that. Each Congress must affirmatively re-enact it — keeping the military answerable to the people's representatives.
Pressure on courts and defiance of their orders were restrained mostly by custom.Check it
Judicial independence is protected in operative law — the courts that check power can't be starved, packed, or ignored at will.
The peaceful handover and the certification of results leaned on norms — exactly what a bad-faith official could exploit.Check it
The peaceful transfer of power is secured by law, and certifying a valid election is a ministerial duty: the official must certify a lawful result and holds no discretion to refuse. Subverting the transfer or the count is not a lever anyone gets to pull.
A service member facing an unlawful order risked their career for refusing it.Check it
Refusing an order to act against the people is a protected act — no charge, discharge, or penalty. The obeying soldier isn't shielded by the order, and the official who issued it, including the President, is personally liable without immunity.
Entire programs lived in classified annexes and special access programs — funded with your money, invisible to most of the committee that authorized it. The executive branch chose which handful of members got briefed. Officials could deny a program existed. The Pentagon has never once passed an audit, and 63% of nearly $4 trillion in assets can’t be accounted for. When Congress tried to attach real audit enforcement, it got stripped out in conference.Check it
The oversight committee sees everything — every program, account, transfer, and contract, including special access, unacknowledged, and compartmented programs. No category is exempt and nothing can be structured to escape it. The full committee, not a hand-picked few. No executive privilege, state secrets, or contractor claim can be raised against it. Conceal a program and its funding is void by operation of law — the Treasury simply can’t pay. An order from the President or the Secretary to withhold is void, protects nobody who obeys it, and is a high crime for whoever gave it. And no program stays secret from the public forever.
Congress passes a law. The president doesn't like it — but he can't get the votes to repeal it. So he just… stops enforcing it. He orders investigators to stand down, zeroes out the penalties, refuses to spend the money Congress set aside, and leaves the enforcement offices empty. In 2025, wage-theft enforcement cases dropped 97% — not because the law changed, but because the executive decided to quit doing its job. A right nobody will enforce is just a suggestion, and a president who can erase any law by ignoring it holds a power the Constitution denied even to kings: the power to suspend the law.Check it
The executive has to actually enforce the laws Congress passes — agree with them or not. Honest discretion still exists: prosecutors can decline weak cases, chase the worst offenders first, and work within real budget limits. What's banned is using non-enforcement to kill a law entirely. If enforcement collapses far below what it used to be or what Congress paid for, the law is presumed to be under attack, and the executive has to prove a genuine, neutral reason — "we don't like the law" doesn't count. Money Congress appropriates to enforce a law must be spent enforcing it — no more starving a law by refusing to fund or staff it. And for the first time this is actually enforceable in court: Congress, anyone denied a law's protection, any injured state, and the watchdogs can all sue, and a judge can order enforcement to resume. No repealing laws by simply ignoring them.
This is the plain-language version. The binding text is CS-31, which implements Article Twenty-Five of the Constitution.
This is your country’s law. Help shape the next draft of it.
