By Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
Outrage is understandable. Despair is tempting. Neither is a plan.
For Americans alarmed by the Trump administration’s conduct, Common Cause and the American Civil Liberties Union are offering something more useful: an accounting of abuses and proposals to prevent their recurrence. Their work deserves attention, not only for what they oppose but also for what they seek to build.
Jennifer Rubin highlighted their efforts in her October 9 Contrarian column, “Undaunted Democracy Fighters.” I am sharing summaries of her account for readers who may not receive The Contrarian. These organizations deserve credit for their ongoing actions and contributions. Those who agree with their purposes should know what they are doing and consider supporting their work.
Common Cause’s focus is presidential profiteering. As Rubin recounts, Abigail Bellows, its senior policy director for anti-corruption and accountability, describes a presidency intertwined with opportunities for private enrichment: cryptocurrency ventures, real estate investments, licensing arrangements and payments from companies with interests before the federal government.
The distinction between misconduct and criminal conduct matters. Bellows acknowledges that not every arrangement constitutes corruption under a narrow legal definition. That is precisely the problem. Conduct can undermine public trust without violating an existing statute.
When public power and private financial interests become entangled, Americans have reason to question whose interests their government serves.
Common Cause proposes a straightforward answer: Congress should prohibit personal profit during the presidency. Under the proposal Rubin describes, the president and vice president would receive their official salaries, without outside income.
The principle is simple: public office is a public trust, not a business opportunity.
Rather than chase each new money-making arrangement with another narrowly tailored restriction, Common Cause wants a comprehensive prohibition. Legislative details and enforcement mechanisms would matter enormously. But the goal deserves serious consideration, regardless of which party occupies the White House.
The ACLU addresses a different danger: the use of immigration enforcement to erode civil liberties and democratic accountability.
According to Rubin’s account, its new report identifies 76 ways the administration’s mass-deportation agenda has undermined those protections. It groups its findings into attacks on civil liberties, attacks on democratic institutions and checks on power, and attacks on a pluralistic, multiracial democracy.
Among the actions it describes are targeting journalists and peaceful activists, expanding detention, racial profiling, evading court orders and disrupting legal immigration and naturalization.
One especially troubling finding concerns what the ACLU calls “mass de-legalizing”: stripping more than one million people of legal status and work authorization. Its argument is that the government has made previously protected people newly vulnerable to removal.
These are not merely disputes over how many immigrants the country should admit. They raise questions about due process, limits on executive power and whether government agents must answer for their conduct.
The ACLU’s proposed remedies extend beyond operational changes. It calls for a broad pathway to citizenship, modernization of border and asylum processes, stronger accountability for federal officials and the ability of individuals to bring legal actions over abuses.
Most controversially, it proposes abolishing and replacing Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a new immigration management agency. Rubin reports that a fuller blueprint is forthcoming. This is a proposed restructuring, not a finished legislative plan.
The ACLU argues that body cameras and restrictions on agents’ masking, although important, cannot by themselves correct deeper institutional problems.
Readers need not endorse every recommendation to recognize the value of this work. Documenting abuses makes accountability possible. Offering structural remedies moves the debate beyond anger.
Together, these organizations make an essential point: changing officeholders is not enough if the machinery that enabled abuse remains intact. Elections can change who holds power. Durable reforms must change how that power may be used.
I believe Common Cause and the ACLU deserve credit for continuing that work. For readers who share their commitment to accountable government and civil liberties, their efforts merit gratitude and support. They are not simply objecting to what is wrong. They are helping develop answers to what must come next.
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Phil Huber is a retired Army Reserve colonel and former federal civil servant who writes about civic education, public accountability and national security. He lives in Fredericksburg.
