About Us

The Revolving Door Project (RDP) was created to scrutinize executive branch appointees to ensure they use their office to serve the broad public interest, rather than to entrench corporate power or seek personal advancement. In recent years our work has expanded to include monitoring how corporate and billionaire influence distorts coverage of economic issues in the media, the interpretation of law in our courts, and policymaking by various state constitutional officers. 

RDP pays particular attention to the more subtle forms of political influence beyond direct lobbying and spending. Corporate America distorts politics through money in ways both overt and covert. Our goal is to help fill the vacuum of knowledge about all the ways in which money corrupts politics that otherwise evade scrutiny, and counteract the advantage that corporations have in the political process. 

Many of the deep rules that govern our rigged economy are written within the executive branch and out of sight of civil society. The quality of their enforcement is also dependent on the leadership agenda at federal agencies. From influential offices like the Office of Management and Budget, to agencies with important consumer protection mandates like the Federal Trade Commission; from the powerful litigators at the Justice Department to the inspectors and investigators responsible for ensuring the health and safety of our food, goods, transportation, and environment, executive branch personnel play a significant role in structuring our economic system. 

We call for a corporate crackdown: a coordinated whole-of-government effort to crack down on corporate wrongdoing that exploits everyday Americans and makes it harder to afford the essentials of life. If we want the government to stand up against powerful interests in order to protect the public interest and structure the economy away from rent extraction towards greater economic equality, we need the right people to hold key executive branch positions. The federal government needs to empower dedicated civil servants rather than self-interested people rotating between relatively short stints in government and longer stints in the very industries they’re supposed to regulate. And when the executive branch fails to enforce the law against the powerful actors exacerbating economic inequality, Congress must provide prompt and certain oversight. 

RDP’s watchdog role also extends to the federal judiciary, state constitutional officers, and the news media, all of which are afflicted by corporate capture via means both obvious and subtle. Wherever corruption is present, RDP’s core belief remains the same: it matters who holds power, and who understands how power is actually exercised. That’s why it is crucial to call out outlets and commentators who poison the information ecosystem with corporate-friendly neoliberal orthodoxy, judges who take cues from corporate America, and state constitutional officers who work outside the spotlight on behalf of the rich and against the broader public interest.

Only a public that has been educated about how power is truly wielded will be able to reclaim the power that it ought to possess in a democracy. It’s our job to make sure that the grassroots can get into the game.

The Revolving Door Project is fiscally sponsored by Goodnation Foundation. Their EIN is 81-4768448.