March 01, 2023 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter
Dylan Gyauch-Lewis Emma Marsano Ananya Kalahasti Julian Scoffield
Congressional OversightConsumer ProtectionExecutive BranchFintechHealth
What Makes a Good Executive Branch Official?
If we had to make one overarching argument about what makes a good executive branch official, whether at a massive cabinet-level department, a medium-sized agency, or a tiny commission, it is this: a habit of skepticism about corporate claims.
January 20, 2023 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter
Hack Watch: The Fairness Doctrine Strikes Again: Media Outlets are Calling Republicans’ Austerity Pushes a Debt Ceiling “Showdown”
However, in their ongoing quest to appear “neutral” and “balanced,” some media outlets are saying that the damage will be done by the deficit ceiling fight itself, not by the Republican push to default on our loans.
December 15, 2022
To Rein In Big Tech, Congress Must Pass The Ending Platform Monopolies Act
Early into his administration, President Biden signed his Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, a key first move to rein in Big Tech and other corporate monopolies. But the White House and executive branch agencies cannot act alone to return economic power to consumers and small businesses. Congress must also act.
December 07, 2022 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter
Pipeline Permits, Border Walls, and the Nightmare at Red Hill
Simply put, we would ask for more rigor from the wonks who would like a say in how we redesign America’s energy systems. The challenge is massive, yes: to better serve more people with more efficient, less wasteful, less toxic energy infrastructure, while restraining the human footprint on the planet, so that other forms of life can also thrive. But it is also an energizing challenge, and eminently worthy of human effort. Any theory of climate change mitigation that is inflexible and unimaginative enough to involve bulldozing those who stand in its way is just another partial paradise, a green veil thrown over the same extractive relationships that got us here.
November 23, 2022 | The New Republic
Timi Iwayemi Dylan Gyauch-Lewis
Op-Ed Congressional OversightCryptocurrencyFinancial RegulationIndependent Agencies
Don’t Fall for FTX’s Final Con
The FTX disaster should be all the impetus needed to kill off any new crypto industry–approved legislation. Instead, we need Congress to provide material support for financial regulators in the form of increased appropriations to guard against the next collapse. Much of the crypto industry is already subject to laws—the very ones that the SEC seeks to enforce and that the crypto industry broadly (not just Sam Bankman-Fried) seeks to evade by reducing the SEC’s jurisdiction ex post facto. Both the CFTC and SEC urgently need funds to fulfill their mandates. Crypto stretches these needs even further, but the need has existed for years. For decades, financial crimes have too often gone unpunished. This wasn’t for a lack of rules, but a lack of will, funds, and people willing to enforce them. Crypto doesn’t need special treatment, it needs to face the music.
November 04, 2022
Hackwatch BankingCongressional OversightConsumer ProtectionExecutive BranchFinancial RegulationIndependent Agencies
Corporate Scammers Aren't Independent Voices
White collar crooks are behind the campaign to kill the CFPB, but don’t expect the mainstream media to tell you that.
October 31, 2022
Blog Post Congressional OversightDepartment of Homeland SecurityDepartment of JusticeEthics in Government
A Crisis Of (Un)Accountability: Amidst Profound Political Cruelty, Ethics Matter More Than Ever
The news was flooded in September with images, reports, and increasingly abhorrent context for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ trafficking of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard as a political stunt. DeSantis’ actions, and those of his aides, are of course potentially illegal, as was asserted by a Texas sheriff who opened a criminal investigation into the spectacle. This latest sadistic political posturing came at the cost of real people fleeing real persecution, but there is also a crucial piece of this awful puzzle that hasn’t been fully explored. Why did Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents, funded by federal dollars, allegedly forge documents for migrants knowing (even if the migrants themselves didn’t) that their flights were not destined for the locales DHS agents made their immigration proceedings beholden to?
October 03, 2022 | The American Prospect
Pat Toomey Blockades Biden’s Housing Nominees Amid Historic Rent Hikes
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is lacking vital staff during a crisis of housing affordability.
September 07, 2022
Blog Post Confirmations CrisisCongressional OversightGovernanceGovernment CapacityIndependent Agencies
The Confirmations Crisis
As we at the Revolving Door Project have long argued, the crisis surrounding the confirmations (or rather, the lack thereof) of Biden’s highly qualified nominees remains an issue of critical importance.
August 19, 2022 | The American Prospect
Toni Aguilar Rosenthal Hannah Story Brown
Op-Ed Congressional OversightEthics in GovernmentExecutive BranchGovernanceRevolving Door
Where Has Congress Been on Trump Holdovers?
The public hearings conducted by the House Select Committee have exceeded many Democrats’ expectations, not only as conversation-changing political theater, but also as a venue to uncover vital information. For example, the country now knows that Secret Service text messages from January 6th were deleted from phones shortly thereafter in what the agency has called a “planned migration.” This is what congressional oversight activities should do: extract truths from the halls of power and pursue public accountability accordingly.
August 04, 2022 | The American Prospect
Proposed Stablecoin Legislation Is Worse Than Nothing
Better still, the government could consider more aggressive action. Application of existing law would bring some stability to the stablecoin space, but there is one more simple and effective option: banning them outright. Stablecoins are an essential component of a deeply fraudulent industry that is financially and environmentally destructive. Guaranteeing their existence is an unnecessary risk.
July 29, 2022 | The American Prospect
It’s Past Time to Replace IRS Chief Charles Rettig
Earlier this month, The New York Times broke the story that former FBI director James Comey and his former deputy director Andrew McCabe, both loathed and eventually fired by President Trump, also both underwent rare and intensive tax audits under the National Research Program, which studies tax compliance and calculates the “tax gap” (the difference between legally owed tax and what is actually paid). Out of around 154 million annual tax returns, the National Research Program selected just 5,000 tax returns in 2017 and 8,000 in 2019 to audit. Neither man knew the other had undergone the same audit until a Times reporter told them.
July 28, 2022 | The Lever
Lawmakers Aren’t Disclosing Their Next Jobs
Despite a disclosure law, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, only one of 56 retiring members of Congress has filed reports on their potential new jobs this election cycle.
June 30, 2022
Press Release Climate and EnvironmentCongressional OversightEthics in GovernmentExecutive BranchIndependent Agencies
RELEASE: Impact of Supreme Court’s EPA Decision Can Be Minimized Through Decisive Executive Counteractions
Today the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in West Virginia v. EPA, curbing the EPA’s authority to establish carbon emissions caps under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. It is a significant blow, and is further evidence of how far this empowered, extremist Supreme Court will go to erode the functions of our government and contravene the public interest. But it is not a lethal blow. Many tools to stave off the climate crisis and facilitate an equitable energy transition remain available to the EPA, to the White House, and to Congress.