We the People Lifetime Lobbying Ban: What Happens the Day It Becomes Law.

Smash the Golden Revolving Door

   The Day the Lifetime Lobbying Ban Becomes Law

It’s 9:17 a.m. on a random Tuesday in 2028, let’s call it March 14th, when the Supreme Court refuses cert on the last remaining challenge.

At 9:18 a.m., the Lifetime Lobbying Ban for former Members of Congress, their senior staff, and all Article III judges officially becomes the law of the land.

Here’s exactly what happens that day, hour by hour, and in the weeks that follow. Buckle up. This is the closest the United States has ever come to a peaceful political revolution.

9:30 a.m. – K Street Goes Into Cardiac Arrest

The first text that blows up every D.C. group chat is a single screenshot of the SCOTUS docket with the word “CERTIORARI DENIED” in bold.

Within six minutes, the S&P 500 futures dropped 2.1%. Every major lobbying firm’s stock (if public) or valuation (if private) gets absolutely torched.

At Covington & Burling’s 17th-floor trading-floor-style “issues monitoring room,” three partners simultaneously vomit into trash cans. One junior associate is caught on a hot mic screaming, “We just lost 40% of our book of business in ninety seconds.”

10:00 a.m. – The “Revolving Door 500” List Drops

An anonymous account on X posts a Google Sheet titled “The 497 People Who Must Now Find a Real Job.”

It’s every living former Member who has registered as a lobbyist since 2000, plus every senior staffer (CoS, LD, AA) who has gone downtown in the last 20 years.

The sheet includes their current firm, 2027 billables, and a column labeled “New Career Ideas” that is merciless:

• “Uber Black driver.”

• “OnlyFans (feet pics only, face blurred).”

• “Walmart greeter – excellent people skills.”
By noon, the sheet has 4.1 million views and is being updated in real time by the entire subreddit.

10:15 a.m. – The First Mass Layoff Announcement

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld sends a firm-wide email: “Effective immediately, the Federal Government Relations practice group is being wound down. Impacted employees will receive 60 days of severance and COBRA.”

Six other AmLaw 100 firms follow suit before lunch. Mid-law and boutique lobbying shops don’t even bother with emails – they just turn off the lights and ghost.

11:00 a.m. – LinkedIn Becomes a War Zone

Former congressmen who spent years posting “Great to catch up with my friend Senator X about energy policy!” suddenly pivot to #OpenToWork banners with the desperation of a Tinder bio at 1:59 a.m.

One ex-chairman of the House Financial Services Committee posts:

“Exploring new opportunities in strategic advisory, board service, or light carpentry.”

The top comment, with 87k likes: “Home Depot on Route 1 is hiring, sir.”

Noon – The White House Daily Briefing

Press Secretary: “The President congratulates Congress on finally keeping a promise it made to the American people in 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024, and 2026.”

Reporter: “Will the President be signing an executive order extending the ban to the executive branch?”

Press Secretary, smiling: “We’re looking very closely at cooling-off periods of… let’s call it ‘permanent duration."

1:00 p.m. – The Great Talent Flip Begins

Google, Amazon, Meta, and every private-equity firm in America simultaneously realize they just gained unrestricted access to the best government-relations talent on earth – without having to pay lobbying firms a 400% markup.

Recruiters start cold emailing former members with subject lines like:

“$900k + equity, no NDAs about classified briefings, work from Tahoe.”

By 3:00 p.m. the acceptance rate on these offers is 94%.

2:00 p.m. – Real Estate Bloodbath

The commercial leasing agents on K Street and Capitol Hill start getting calls that sound identical:

“We’re terminating our 120,000 sq ft lease effective immediately. Keep the furniture.”

CBRE issues an emergency market report titled “Washington, D.C. – Class A Office Vacancy to Hit 41% by Q3 2028.”

One landlord is heard crying in the lobby of 1299 Pennsylvania Ave: “I just refinanced at 7.8% based on lobbyist leases!”

4:00 p.m. – The “Influence Laundering” Gold Rush

The smart ex-lobbyists pivot instantly. New LLCs pop up with names like:

• “Strategic Communications (Definitely Not Lobbying) LLC”

• “Grandma’s Policy Insights, Inc.”

• “Former Member Consulting (I Only Advise My Wife and She Happens to Lobby)”
The ethics lawyers who wrote the loopholes in the first place are suddenly the highest-paid humans in Washington. Their rate jumps from $1,200/hr to $5,000/hr overnight.

6:00 p.m. – Happy Hour at The Monocle

The iconic steakhouse on Capitol Hill – usually packed with lobbyists expensing $300 bottles of Caymus – is dead silent except for one table of staffers in the corner.

The bartender tells a reporter, “I poured one martini all night. To a former Senator. He left a $100 tip and said, ‘I won’t be back. Ever.’”

Day 2 – The Think-Tank Feeding Frenzy

Heritage, Cato, CAP, Brookings, and every other 501(c)(3) in town wake up to the fact that they can now hire ex-members at 25 cents on the dollar.

Job offers flood in: “Senior Fellow – $180k, unlimited travel, no requirement to write anything longer than a tweet.”

By the end of the week, 112 former Members have accepted “fellowships” that come with one ironclad rule: you are not allowed to contact any sitting Member of Congress for five years.

Many call it “witness protection for politicians.”

Week 3 – The Rise of “Shadow Lobbying 2.0"

The banned lobbyists get creative:

• They put their 24-year-old niece on payroll as “Director of Government Affairs.”

• They start “newsletters” that charge $50,000 per sponsor and happen to list “policy recommendations” that mirror their old clients’ exact asks.

• Astroturf groups rebrand as “grassroots coalitions of concerned grandmothers.”

Month 2 – The Great Purge of Boilerplate

Congressional staff notice something bizarre: the identical 17-page amendment on “modernizing CFIUS review thresholds for critical minerals from friendly nations” stops appearing in every appropriations bill.

It turns out the same ex-Member turned lobbyist had inserted that language for 19 straight years. No one else even knew what it did.

Month 6 – The First “Clean” Election Cycle

For the first time since the 1970s, fewer than 3% of retiring Members announce they are “heading downtown” after leaving office.

Campaign contributions from registered lobbyists drop 68%.

Political consultants quietly freak out because the old “vote for me or the special interests will get you” attack ads no longer test well with focus groups.

Year 1 – The New Normal

• The phrase “former Member of Congress” loses its magical aura. They’re just… people. Some sell real estate in Florida. Some teach high school civics. One opens a barbecue joint in Tuscaloosa that’s legitimately excellent.

• Actual policy starts getting written by… policy experts. Not by the highest bidder.

• The American public starts to believe – slowly, cautiously – that maybe the system isn’t completely rigged.

And on the anniversary of the day the ban became law, a new tradition begins.

Every March 14th, people in D.C. leave empty briefcases on the steps of the old lobbying firms with little notes inside that read:

“Thanks for your service.

The revolving door is now a wall.”

Some traditions are worth keeping.

The International Reaction

11:30 a.m. – The Rest of the World Loses Its Mind

While K Street is melting down, foreign embassies are having the opposite problem: pure panic.

For decades, the standard playbook for any country wanting something from Washington was simple: hire a former Senator or Chairman for $50k–$100k a month, get a couple rounds of golf at Burning Tree, and the foreign agent registration (FARA) filing was basically a formality.

Now, overnight, 70% of registered foreign agents who are ex-Members just became radioactive.

The Saudi and UAE ambassadors hold an emergency joint press conference (a historic first) begging Congress to “grandfather in existing contracts. The Norwegian ambassador, by contrast, sends a fruit basket to the Supreme Court with a note that reads, “Tusen takk. Finally.”

In Beijing, the Ministry of State Security reportedly opens a bottle of champagne. Their internal memo (leaked six hours later) reads: “The Americans have just unilaterally disarmed their entire influence industry. Suggest accelerating 2028 election operations.”

The Media Meltdown & Clickpocalypse

The 24-Hour News Cycle Breaks

Cable news has no idea what to do with itself. For thirty years the easiest chyron was “[Former Senator] turned lobbyist for [Evil Industry] says…”

Now that the source is legally forbidden from talking to Congress, every producer is screaming at bookers: “Find me someone who knows something but isn’t tainted!”

The result is the most chaotic day in cable history:

• CNN accidentally books a sitting Member who is literally on the floor voting and has to do the hit from the cloakroom whispering.

• MSNBC runs a 45-minute panel titled “Is Policy Expertise Dead?” with four think-tank fellows who have never left Dupont Circle.

• Fox Business brings on a random guy in a hard hat claiming to be “just a pipeline worker” who turns out to be the brother-in-law of the anchor.
Meanwhile, Substack and X eat the entire industry alive. Independent newsletters offering “no ex-lobbyist sources, ever” gain 100k+ subscribers in a single day. The phrase “K Street-free reporting” becomes the new “gluten-free” for political media.

The Family Office & Dark Money Pivot

Week 4 – Where the Real Money Goes Next

The ultra-wealthy didn’t get rich by panicking. Within days, every single-family office in America updates its playbook.

New entity names start popping up in Delaware and South Dakota:

• “Patriot Policy Education Fund”

• “Americans for Common Sense Regulation LLC”

• “Citizens for Grandchildren’s Future PAC.”
These aren’t traditional lobbying shops. They’re 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations that can spend unlimited money on “issue advocacy” right up to the line of express advocacy, and the banned ex-Members can run them as long as they don’t personally contact Congress.
One billionaire famously wires $40 million into a new entity on Day 9 and tells his lawyer, “Just make it legal and make it hurt.”
The IRS, already understaffed, quietly moves the entire nonprofit division to the “maybe next decade” pile.

The Unexpected Heroes: Congressional Staff

The Accidental Power Grab

While everyone is watching the former Members cry on LinkedIn, the real power shift is happening in the background, and it’s going to legislative staff.

For the first time in modern history, a 28-year-old Legislative Director making $90k suddenly knows more about the actual policy than anyone in the room. No ex-Chairman is whispering the “real” way the bill has to be written anymore.

Staffers start demanding, and getting, $300k–$500k salaries to jump to the private sector as actual experts instead of influence peddlers.

One former House Ways & Means staffer who helped write the 2017 tax bill gets 47 job offers in a single week, picks the $1.1M + equity package from a fintech unicorn, and posts a single X tweet:

“Ten years of making $68k–$112k while watching lobbyists make 20× that for copying my work into a different font.

Today the font budget ran out.

Peace.”

The Cultural Reckoning

Year 2 and Beyond – The Identity Crisis

Something deeper breaks when the ban goes permanent.

Being a “former Member turned lobbyist” was more than a job, it was an entire identity. These people had business cards that literally said “The Honorable” on them. They got reserved parking at Reagan National. Random people in airports thanked them for their service while they were on their way to close a $4 million contract for a defense contractor.

Now that entire self-image is gone.

Therapists in northern Virginia and Bethesda report a 600% increase in patients describing “loss of status” depression. One psychiatrist coins the term “Post-Congressional Stress Disorder.”

Divorce lawyers say it’s the busiest two years of their careers, second spouses who married “Senator So-and-So” suddenly discover they’re married to just… Steve.

And the cruelest cut of all: invitation lists. For the first time since 1950, the Alfalfa Club dinner, the Gridiron, and every other D.C. ritual stops automatically putting “The Honorable” on the place cards of ex-Members who went downtown. They’re now seated at Table 47 by the kitchen, right next to the guys who won their seats in a raffle.

What Happens to the Supreme Court Justices

Day 1, 2:47 p.m. – The Black-Robes Freak Out Quietly

The lifetime lobbying ban applies to Article III judges too. That means every living Supreme Court justice, active and retired, is now permanently barred from ever registering as a lobbyist.

The active justices don’t care; they’re set for life anyway. The retired ones? Different story.

Justice Breyer (retired 2022) had already been cashing $25k–$40k speaking gigs from law firms and trade associations that everyone knew were “thanks for the vote” in disguise. Those invites vanish overnight. His speaking agent calls him in tears: “They’re all canceling. They say the optics are toxic now.

Justice Kennedy (retired 2018) was pulling seven figures a year doing “private mediation” for Fortune 100 companies with cases that could plausibly end up back before the Court. His last mediation check bounces when the company’s GC realizes Kennedy can no longer whisper in any justice’s ear, even informally.

The real panic hits the current justices who everyone assumes will retire in the next decade. They’ve been mentally banking on the post-bench lobbyist-adjacent gravy train: book deals, $100k+ speeches, “senior counsel” roles at Covington quietly kept warm. That entire retirement plan just went up in smoke.

Within a week, the Judicial Conference quietly circulates a memo titled “Ethical Considerations for Post-Bench Activities” that is 47 pages of passive-aggressive legalese basically saying: Don’t even think about it.

One clerk leaks the best part: the Chief Justice Roberts added a handwritten Post-it to the draft that ,reads, “Good.”

The States That Copy the Ban Immediately

Week 6 – The Domino Effect

Fourteen states have lifetime lobbying bans already on the books for state-level officials. They’ve been mostly symbolic because the real money was always in D.C.

That changes the second the federal ban survives SCOTUS.

Governors smell blood. Why let your own state legislators' cash out downtown when you can trap them in a lifelong cooling-off period too?

• Florida: Ron DeSantis calls a special session and signs the “Clean Capitol Forever Act” 72 hours later. Every former Florida legislator who moved to D.C. to lobby suddenly can’t even lobby Tallahassee anymore. Half of them move back to Miami and open boat-detailing businesses.

• Texas: Greg Abbott one-ups Florida with the “No Double-Dipping Ever Act,” which includes a clause that any ex-legislator who lobbies federally is automatically barred from state lobbying too. The Texas lobby corps loses 60% of its roster in a month.

• California: Gavin Newsom tries to look pure, signs a ban, then immediately creates a “Citizens’ Redistricting Advisory Commission Fellowship” that pays ex-legislators $350k to “study democracy.” The state auditor calls it “lobbying with extra steps.” The program survives anyway because of Sacramento.

• Wyoming, Alaska, and South Carolina: go full nuclear pass constitutional amendments with 80%+ voter approval. Their bans include family members. One South Carolina ex-Senator’s wife has to shut down her “consulting” firm the same week.

• New York and Illinois try to pass bans, but get bogged down in committee because, surprise, their legislatures are packed with members planning to cash out next cycle.

By the end of 2028, 29 states will have lifetime or 10-year-plus bans. The phrase “K Street exile” becomes “K Street and state-capital exile.”

The best part? State campaign war chests actually go up. Donors realize their money isn’t just buying access for the next election; it might be the only access they ever get.

This Isn’t Sci-Fi. It’s One Vote Away.

Everything you just read isn’t a fantasy.

It’s not wish-casting.

It’s not even particularly complicated.

The bill already exists.

It’s been introduced in every Congress since 2016.

It has passed the House twice with huge bipartisan votes.

It has 67 co-sponsors in the current Senate, more than enough to break a filibuster if leadership ever lets it hit the floor.

All that’s missing is the one thing the political elites fear more than losing an election:

You. Loud. Persistent. Impossible to ignore.

Because when 5,000 people a day start calling their Senator about the same thing, staffers stop laughing and start sweating.

When town-hall crowds start chanting the bill number (S. 1174 / H.R. 302) instead of clapping politely, incumbents start flipping.

When primary challengers run ads that are nothing but a 15-second clip of the Senator refusing to support the lifetime ban… elections get decided in a single cycle.

So, here’s the only question that actually matters in 2025:

Will you let another decade of corruption sail by because “someone else will do it”?

Or will you be one of the citizens who finally burn the revolving door to the ground?

The lobbyists are praying you get tired.

They’re betting you’ll scroll past this and forget by dinner.

Prove them wrong.

Because when this ban finally passes, and it will future generations will look back and ask:

“Were you one of the citizens who made them do it…

or one of the ones who just watched?”

The clock is running.

Let’s make March 14 real.

Be on the right side of history.

Our Thomas Paine Moment – The Final Emotional Gut Punch for Lifetime lobbying ban!

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was one pamphlet that changed everything.

In 1776 it united farmers, merchants, and scholars against a common enemy.

Today the enemy is not a distant king.

It is a domestic ruling class that gets rich selling your future.

Paine wrote: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

We still do.

The lifetime lobbying ban is the modern Common Sense — one sentence that begins the world over again.

Your ancestors read Paine and picked up muskets.

All we ask is that you text WETHEPEOPLE to 50409.

Do it right now.

Then click “put my name on the wall.”

Your grandchildren will either thank you, or never know what freedom felt like.

Choose.

→ Text WETHEPEOPLE to 50409 → Get the book: https://a.co/d/dmxAYjK → Join officially:

Join the Revolution!

→ Full movement hub: https://www.raresenseamerica.com/we-the-people-movement

Band-aids are over.

This time, we cure the disease.

We are coming.