2025: A Year of Action
At the highest levels of government, we saw blatant corruption & concentrated power harden into a governing strategy. Power being used not to serve the national interest, but to reward allies, punish critics, & entrench control. Fear becoming a tool. The rules bent for the well-connected.
We moved swiftly to respond.
Highlights
2025 began full of challenges. I end it full of hope.
This year tested the basic idea at the heart of America’s democratic experiment: that government should work for all the people, not just the powerful. We saw power grabs, capitulation, and complicity. But we also saw something else break through: people.
Across the country, Americans showed up at town halls, in courtrooms, through phone banks, and in the streets to say no. No to corruption. No to intimidation. No to government captured by a few at the expense of the many.
And crucially, we are seeing what we said from the start we would see: when Americans come together around shared values, we make change possible.
Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, RepresentUs CEO
RepresentUs exists to expose corruption, mobilize people across lines of difference, and make accountability unavoidable. In 2025, we met the moment:
- Nearly 60 million views of our content helped large diverse audiences understand what was happening and what was at stake
- We convened more than 500 leaders across ideologies and all corners of the pro-democracy movement at our American Democracy Summit.
- Our volunteer network generated over 700,000 actions pressing Congress and supporting reforms at critical moments.
- We launched our Congressional Courage Campaign and are poised to expand from 16 to 21 Local Action Teams in key congressional districts.
- We helped block dangerous provisions on AI and the judiciary in the Big Beautiful Bill Act, supported the successful extension of Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program, and helped move a bipartisan ban on congressional stock trading closer to reality.
Support Our Work in 2026
Your support will help us mobilize voters in key districts, push members of Congress to uphold their oath and hold the executive branch accountable, and build lasting momentum for pro-democracy and anti-corruption reform.
BREAKING DOWN CORRUPTION AND FUELING COURAGE
RepresentUs has long been a leading national voice reaching out to Americans across ideological lines with easy-to-understand content explaining the corruption and dysfunction in our political system. This year’s challenges demanded that we double down on that educational role, breaking down the news in ways people could understand.
Reaching Audiences Across Ideological Lines
A donor-funded video featuring Michael Douglas explaining how corruption is working now reached more than 5.5 million Americans across the political spectrum. Most importantly: right-of-center viewers watched at the same high completion rate as left-leaning audiences, showing that this messaging on corruption is able to catch and hold attention across partisan lines.
👉 Across all of our social media platforms, our organic content was viewed 41 million times and our paid content was viewed 18 million times through November 2025.
Spotlighting Everyday Courage
Our top-performing content this year showed there’s another way to break through online besides anger. A simple, organic video of Samuel García’s statement before the Texas state legislature reached 8.8 million views without paid promotion, underscoring how hungry Americans are for authentic stories of courage
More Top Videos
Politicians are afraid to speak out over White House attacks
Nov 17 2025
We need courage from our leaders.
She's out here saying what millions of us are thinking
Oct 30 2025
RepresentUs CEO Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno on MSNBC talking about the Congressional Courage Campaign.
What happens when billionaires buy elections?
Jul 10 2025
FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub is sounding the alarm
The “Big Beautiful Bill” isn’t about helping us
Jun 20 2025
This is a bad deal for Americans. Tell your Senator: Reject the ugly and corrupt provisions in this bill.
The U.S. government is for sale to the highest bidder
May 30 2025
Trump’s new ‘flying palace’ — paid for by us?
Elon Musk is dismantling the agencies investigating him
Mar 18 2025
Elon Musk isn’t just “cutting government waste”—he’s cutting the very agencies that have investigated him.
ENGAGING THE MOVEMENT
“Five years ago, I joined RepresentUs with a simple hope: just to make a difference. I had never been involved in political groups before, but it seemed like the right time to get involved and I really appreciated the nonpartisan focus of RepresentUs. Back then, I never could have imagined that I’d be leading phonebanks, organizing volunteers, and working alongside so many dedicated individuals who shared the same concerns about our political system that I have.”
Jen Jackson, RepresentUs Volunteer
Recipient of the Power Up the Movement Award
National Digital Organizing and Local Action Teams
The beating heart of RepresentUs is our nimble mobilization and organizing infrastructure, which includes:
National Digital Volunteer Network: A staff-supported network of more than 1,300 engaged volunteers and 50 trained leaders who run phone and text banks to generate rapid support and pressure for national, state, and local initiatives.
Local Action Teams: Sixteen volunteer-led teams, trained and supported by RepresentUs staff, that complement national efforts with focused, in-person organizing in communities, states, and key congressional districts.
In 2025, RepresentUs volunteers made more than 100,000 phone calls and sent more than 600,000 text messages to support reforms and press Congress to check the executive branch.
Campaign Spotlights🌟
Seattle Democracy Vouchers: In partnership with the Yes on Prop 1 campaign, RepresentUs helped pass a renewal of Seattle’s historic Democracy Voucher program. As one of the campaign’s top 12 funders, we helped fund mailers to more than 35,000 Seattle voters, mobilized voters and volunteers through via SMS and phonebank outreach, and sent handwritten postcards to more than 2,000 voters who were less likely to turn out in odd-year elections.
Limiting Executive Overreach: RepresentUs strategically used our digital organizing network to put pressure on Congress to stand up to the worst excesses of the administration. Working with partners, we engaged in extensive outreach to representatives to draw attention to DOGE abuses, eliminate anti-accountability provisions (on AI and the courts) from the Big Beautiful Bill Act, investigate the influence of AI firms in the White House, and take back Congress’s authority over trade and war.
Congressional Ban on Stock Trading: RepresentUs volunteers have been working to move the ETHICS Act and the Restore Trust in Congress Act, which would ban stock trading by members of Congress, require new members to divest, and impose penalties for noncompliance. Over the past two years, volunteers have made tens of thousands of calls and texts connecting constituents directly with their representatives, and nearly 40,000 RepresentUs supporters have taken action on the campaign.
Congressional Courage Campaign
In November, we launched our Congressional Courage Campaign – a nationwide, nonpartisan campaign bringing ordinary people together to put sustained, targeted pressure on key members of Congress to do their jobs, hold the executive branch to account, and stand up for their constituents.
By pairing national messaging and digital organizing with localized mobilization where constituent pressure is most likely to move lawmakers, the campaign brings ordinary people together to apply sustained, strategic pressure on Congress.
Our demands of Congress:
- Uphold and defend the Constitution, including by asserting their authority over trade, emergency powers, and troop deployments.
- Exert real oversight of the executive branch, including by holding more officials to account in hearings (e.g., the Judiciary Committee should ask tough questions of Attorney General Bondi on the weaponization of the Department of Justice).
- Effectively represent their constituents, including by reforming the system (e.g., start with the bipartisan ban on congressional stock trading).
💡 Why Congress?
Congress is designed to be responsive to the people and has real constitutional power, if it chooses to use it. Focused, sustained constituent pressure, especially in swing districts, can move narrow and already-fracturing majorities and embolden members to assert their authority and hold the executive branch to account.
In just one month of the Congressional Courage Campaign, we are seeing strong enthusiasm, with enough volunteers to launch Local Action Teams in two initial target districts, Arizona-6 and Nebraska-2 and possible expansion into swing districts in Iowa, Michigan, and New Jersey due to high volunteer engagement.
American Democracy Summit: Bringing the Movement together
American Democracy Summit is the premier, nonpartisan event uniting top minds from across the political spectrum to tackle America’s biggest political challenges. In light of the country’s democratic backsliding and rising corruption this year, we broadened our outreach for panelists and participants to include not only our usual partners among pro-democracy reform groups, but also litigators and other defenders of democracy working across party lines.
Subjects of panels and plenaries ranged from citizen redistricting and ranked choice voting to combating corruption and rising authoritarianism.
2025’s Summit By The Numbers
- 550 attendees from 350 democracy organizations
- 83% heard from someone with a different ideology
- 77% met someone with a different ideology
- 94% said ADS helped them network
- 89% felt more connected to the democracy movement
- 91% would recommend to a colleague
- 89% would attend a future summit
“The ADS conference was a diverse gathering of really smart people who enthusiastically serve the public interest in many different ways. The conversations at the gathering were supported by excellent speakers, helpful volunteers, and an excellent hotel environment.”
Jim Rough, Director/Founder, Center for Wise Democracy
Citizen Redistricting Reform
We launched a major report identifying opportunities for redistricting reform in the lead up to the 2030 census. It became clear in our research that the ballot initiative process is under serious threat across the country and that the first step would be investing in defending the process itself. We convened our partners for a daylong series of workshops at ADS to lay the groundwork for consensus around the best way forward. Each workshop was standing room only.
Press Highlights
RepresentUs CEO Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno on the Nicole Wallace show
Oct 30 2025
RepresentUs CEO Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno on MSNBC talking about the Congressional Courage Campaign.
Miles Taylor and Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno on The Jim Acosta Show
Oct 30 2025
Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno and Miles Taylor on how to build grassroots opposition to the Trump administration.
This is not leadership. It’s intimidation.
Oct 17 2025
This is not leadership. It’s intimidation.
The conviction of Colombia’s ex-president is a sign of hope amid autocracy’s rise
Aug 4 2025
Álvaro Uribe was convicted of bribery in a development that would have seemed inconceivable a decade ago
Members of Congress Investing In Defense Revealed
Jul 10 2025
Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, the CEO of RepresentUS, a nonpartisan anti-corruption group, told Newsweek the trades create "an obvious risk of corruption."
They’ve watched democracies fail. They see it happening under Trump.
May 9 2025
Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno says she’s seen this play out before.
Congress holds a unique duty to uphold democracy. Is it doing so?
Mar 14 2025
Citizens feel their representatives are not living up to their duties. They see their elected officials representing money and special interests instead of representing them.
What will it take to stop Elon Musk and DOGE?
Feb 5 2025
Congress also needs to act, says Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno, CEO of RepresentUS, a nonprofit that fights corruption. “It’s urgent that Congress do its job,” she says. “They are responsible for exercising oversight over the executive branch.”
“Because the goal is not just to survive this moment — it’s to emerge from it with a stronger, more accountable democratic system.”
