Four People Have Begun the Process to Convene Grand Juries Over DOGE, the Make Corrupt Politicians Pay Act Is in the Mail to 1,519 Legislators, the Calls Start This Week, and More

DOGE: Four people in three states have begun the process to convene criminal grand juries over what DOGE did with the Social Security records of the people in their counties, and the kits they are working from are public today for anyone in the six states that allow it. The project is expected to grow to dozens of counties across those six states, gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures and pushing district attorneys and judges to convene criminal grand juries to investigate the Department of Government Efficiency's potential criminal conduct.

So far we have built kits for four counties with interested petitioners. These kits contain the petition, the signature sheets, a timeline, a checklist, and a source packet. All four kits are public, one zip per county, free, for anyone in those states to use: https://buymeacoffee.com/theer/e/573993

Our project director, Elaine DiMasi, coordinates the research and the volunteer effort behind those kits and runs the interviews with every petitioner who reaches out. We will keep supporting these four as activists and journalists, and in the coming weeks we will look for more petitioners in the six states that let citizens petition for a grand jury: Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. If you live in one of them and want to learn more about the process, the sign-up form is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckumdlrk7GwSyvmCf01Mk6EaeLqnPGRwu2MeiLt2o5XmUGKA/viewform.

GoFundMe Campaign: The GoFundMe campaign was a smashing success, and since then we have mailed 1,519 packets of the Make Corrupt Politicians Pay Act, the bill and a cover letter, to Democratic state legislators in every state where Democrats hold the governor’s office and both chambers. This week the calls and emails start, timed to land as the packets arrive, and they carry two asks: pass the Act, and push their states to investigate what DOGE did with the Social Security records of the people who live there. Troy, my second in command, and Stephanie, who leads the volunteer phone and email team, are running that effort. The job is positive contact with every Democratic state legislator in the country, more than 3,000 offices. The same team is reaching every Democratic governor and every Democratic state party chair.

Academic work: My academic paper on state constitutional power was submitted several weeks ago to the Harvard Law Review and is free to read on the academic database SSRN. If you want to help get it in front of more journalists and legislators, you can download the PDF to improve the paper’s ranking.

Question Form: Troy built a form for sending me and the ER your questions, whether that’s a legal question, something you want researched, an action you want help planning, or a topic you want covered. Every question goes into my research queue. Send yours here: https://forms.gle/WGk8rUwESeDMhhC99. Thank you, Troy!

Whether you are subscribed to my newsletter, take part in our daily actions, share my work, or grab gear from our store, thank you. Everything we do at the Existentialist Republic is fueled by your support.

Everything I write has a free version. Toppling Tyrants, Oppositional Federalism and You, Intro to Soft Secession, and Grab Them by the E.A.R.R. are all in the Buy Me a Coffee shop for zero dollars and zero cents: buymeacoffee.com/theer/extras.

I will not let money be the reason anyone goes without the tools. The store is one of the ways we pay for the work.

The Store: If you want to support The ER, so we can continue to grow and expand our reach, a great place to do it is at our store. Just head over to theexistentialistrepublic.com and use code FALL30 at checkout for 30% off absolutely everything in stock through September 30.

When you’re buying this stuff, that means we can keep growing and expanding and doing the things we get to announce, like the kits and the mailing. We want to keep doing this work, and more, and faster, and bigger.

Shout out to ER member Troy who did the work on the store and on this sale. From the incendiary to the revolutionary, we’ve got something for everyone. But heads up! On September 30 we’re retiring the current run of shirts and both bumper stickers, “I Support the Death Penalty for Corporations” and “Republicans Hate Americans.” After that date they will not be sold again. The paperbacks, the We Rebel activist journal, the “Still Waiting On Great” cap, the Freedom of Speech mug, and the stickers that just say The Existentialist Republic are all in the store too, and a paperback is the right gift for the person in your life who will not read a Substack.

New designs are coming. Got ideas for the new lineup? Let us know in the comments!

More is coming. Over the coming weeks we’ll be reaching out to the ER community as a whole with more announcements and more calls to action, effective activism that fights back against authoritarianism. The credit belongs to our incredible team, who should be getting more public roles in the coming months, so you can all get to know them.

Ultimately though, I want it to be clear that the Existentialist Republic is ALL OF US. Our strength is our numbers, our enthusiasm, our commitment, and our strategies and tactics, which keep getting more sophisticated. Is this the science of activism? I’m not sure exactly what to call this thing we are all a part of, but I think it is special. For now, I guess we can just keep calling ourselves The Existentialist Republic, where all of us can be leaders who show up committed to making a better tomorrow.

Thanks for standing with us. Now let’s get after it.

• Chris