Common Sense Again
Claim-Level Sourcing

Source Register

Every record below carries the ID used in Fix the System — Policy Design and Implementation (Version 0.6), so a figure on this site links to the exact source record behind it, not just to a bibliography. Where a source has a known political lean, the record says so. Author arithmetic and unscored illustrations are labeled as such wherever they appear.

Fix the System — Policy Design and Implementation

The complete register — with page and table locators, calculation formulas, and confidence labels — lives in the implementation document (Version 0.6, approved September 10, 2026), alongside the mechanisms the records support.

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  • S01
    Program for Public Consultation, University of Maryland, “Prohibit Members of Congress and Live-In Family from Trading Stocks,” national survey presentation, June 2023. 86% support overall; 87% Republican, 88% Democratic, 81% independent. publicconsultation.org →
  • S02
    Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, Roll Call 280, H.R. 7008, July 22, 2026. Vote 232–198. clerk.house.gov →
    The measure allowed existing holdings to be retained and sold and was paired with a voter-identification provision; it is not a clean or complete ban, and it is not law.
  • S03
    Associated Press, “House votes to limit stock trading by members of Congress,” July 22, 2026. Bill content and political context; the official vote count comes from the House Clerk (S02). apnews.com →
  • S04
    Daniel Yudkin, Stephen Hawkins, and Tim Dixon, The Perception Gap: How False Impressions Are Pulling Americans Apart, More in Common, 2019. moreincommon.com →
    Advocacy-oriented civic research with published methodology. Measures misperceived extremity; it is not evidence of support for this program.
  • S05
    Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036, February 11, 2026. Debt held by the public about 101% of GDP in 2026, projected to 120% by 2036; net interest about $1.0 trillion rising toward $2.1 trillion; total deficit about 5.8% of GDP and primary deficit about 2.6%. cbo.gov →
    Baseline projections under current law, not forecasts of enacted policy. Verified August 7, 2026.
  • S06
    Board of Trustees, 2026 Annual Report of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds, June 9, 2026, especially Table II.A1. OASI depletion in 2032 with 78% of scheduled retirement benefits payable; combined OASI/DI depletion in 2034 at 83%. ssa.gov →
    The retirement-only and combined figures must not be mixed.
  • S07
    Eric McGhee, Seth Masket, Boris Shor, Steven Rogers, and Nolan McCarty, “A Primary Cause of Partisanship? Nomination Systems and Legislator Ideology,” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 2 (2014).
    Peer-reviewed. The finding — nomination-system openness essentially unrelated to legislator extremism — cuts against a moderation promise and is cited for that reason.
  • S08
    City of St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, March 4, 2025 Primary Election Final Official Results. 34,982 voters cast 48,908 mayoral approvals (about 1.40 approvals per voter); Cara Spencer was approved by 68.11% of participating voters. stlouis-mo.gov →
  • S09
    City of St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, “Clarification Regarding March 4 Primary Municipal Election Ballot,” January 21, 2025. stlouis-mo.gov →
  • S10
    North Dakota H.B. 1297 (2025), prohibiting ranked-choice and approval voting statewide. ndlegis.gov →
  • S11
    Michigan Constitution, art. IV, sec. 6 — independent citizens redistricting commission (4 Democratic-affiliated, 4 Republican-affiliated, 5 unaffiliated members; adoption requires seven votes including at least two from each group). legislature.mi.gov →
    Cited for the commission design superseded on September 10, 2026; retained as the record of that design and as the standard for the technical office that applies voting-rights deviations.
  • S12
    California Constitution, art. XXI, sec. 2 — Citizens Redistricting Commission (5-5-4 with a comparable cross-partisan adoption rule). leginfo.legislature.ca.gov →
    Cited for the superseded commission design.
  • S13
    Daryl DeFord, Moon Duchin, and Justin Solomon, “Recombination: A Family of Markov Chains for Redistricting,” Harvard Data Science Review 3, no. 1 (2021); related automated-simulation work by Kosuke Imai and collaborators. doi.org →
    Cited for the ensemble testing in the superseded commission design.
  • S14
    Agee v. Benson, No. 1:22-cv-00272 (W.D. Mich. Dec. 21, 2023), three-judge panel; remedial proceedings in 2024. Michigan's commission used race impermissibly in thirteen Detroit-area districts and was ordered to correct them. law.justia.com →
    Cited as evidence for transparency and judicial review, not against commission independence.
  • S15
    National Conference of State Legislatures, election-administration resources on ranked-choice voting and state primary systems. ncsl.org →
    NCSL is a bipartisan organization serving state legislatures.
  • S16
    Constitution Annotated, U.S. Constitution art. I, sec. 2 and amend. XVII. House terms are two years; Senate terms are six years, so the immediate-election consequence requires a constitutional amendment. constitution.congress.gov →
  • S17
    Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Tax Payments by Undocumented Immigrants, July 30, 2024. $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022, including $25.7 billion to Social Security and $6.4 billion to Medicare. itep.org →
    ITEP is generally regarded as progressive-leaning; its methodology is published.
  • S18
    Internal Revenue Service, “Taxable income,” including capital gains. irs.gov →
  • S19
    U.S. Department of the Treasury, General Explanations of the Administration's Fiscal Year 2025 Revenue Proposals — minimum tax, unrealized gains, liquidity, and deferral discussion. home.treasury.gov →
    Design precedent, not adopted policy here.
  • S20
    AARP, “1 in 5 Americans Ages 50+ Have No Retirement Savings,” April 24, 2024. aarp.org →
    Advocacy organization and survey source. No newer AARP vintage as of August 7, 2026.
  • S21
    Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, May 2026, savings and investments section. federalreserve.gov →
    The Fed's self-assessed on-track figure is a different construct from the model-based readiness measure used in the scorecard and is not used there.
  • S22
    Social Security Administration, Office of the Chief Actuary, Long-Range Solvency Provision B5.2 (special minimum benefit: PIA for 30 years of coverage at 125% of the monthly poverty level, prorated below 30, wage-indexed). Estimated at 0.17% of taxable payroll under the 2022 and 2023 Trustees Reports, 0.13% under 2024, and 0.10% under 2025 — roughly $11–19 billion on the stated 2026 payroll base. ssa.gov →
    A benchmark for a comparable provision, not an actuarial score of this design. The prior 0.16% figure is superseded (August 7, 2026).
  • S23
    Congressional Research Service, The Growing Gap in Life Expectancy by Income: Recent Evidence and Implications for the Social Security Retirement Age, R44846. crsreports.congress.gov →
    Cited as support for rejecting a retirement-age increase; the proposal makes no change to the retirement age.
  • S24
    U.S. Senate, S. 4361, Border Act of 2024, actions and May 23, 2024 cloture vote, 43–50, with Senator Lankford voting against advancing the bill he negotiated; Associated Press reporting for political context. congress.gov →
    Event-specific attribution only; the record does not support claims about any individual's private motive.
  • S25
    Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-603, 100 Stat. 3359. govinfo.gov →
    Historical analogy identifying an implementation failure to prevent, not proof the current design will succeed.
  • S26
    U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995). supreme.justia.com →
    Used only to explain why congressional term limits are rejected and would require an amendment.
  • S27
    Congressional Budget Office, Administrative Costs of Private Accounts in Social Security (2004) and related distributional work. cbo.gov →
    Historical design evidence; assumptions require updating.
  • S28
    Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, The National Retirement Risk Index: An Update from the 2022 SCF (published February 27, 2024): 39% of working-age households at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement — equivalently, 61% on track. crr.bc.edu →
    Adopted August 7, 2026 as the official model for scorecard measure 8. CRR cautions that pandemic-era factors lowered the at-risk share and it may drift back toward 40–50%. No newer vintage as of August 7, 2026.
  • S29
    U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, annual poverty guidelines. 125% of poverty is about $1,660 per month in 2026, rounded to $1,700 in public copy. aspe.hhs.gov →
    The monthly figure must be recomputed for the publication year and household definition.
  • S30
    Brennan Center for Justice, “The Competitive Districts that Will Decide Control of the House” (2024): independent commissions drew about 19% of congressional districts but 41% of 2024 toss-ups. brennancenter.org →
    The former 15.0%-versus-5.7% median comparison was retired August 7, 2026 after its study could not be located. This analysis concerns commissions, the design superseded on September 10, 2026; it is cited only as evidence that removing politicians from the process is associated with competitiveness, not for the formula's outcomes.
  • S31
    Gallup, June 2024 immigration survey: 76% favored hiring more Border Patrol agents; 75% favored a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States illegally who meet requirements over time; 81% for those brought as children. news.gallup.com →
  • S32
    AARP Public Policy Institute, July 13, 2022: about 57 million people — 48% of private-sector employees ages 18–64 — work for an employer offering neither a pension nor a retirement savings plan. aarp.org →
  • S33
    Pew Research Center, U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14 Million in 2023, August 21, 2025. Total unauthorized population as of mid-2023, including about 6 million with temporary protections and about 2 million admitted with precarious statuses. pewresearch.org →
    Recorded August 7, 2026 for the open duration-definition question on scorecard measure 5. The scorecard's “long-term residents” baseline remains the 2022-vintage 11 million pending an author decision.
  • S34
    Cook Political Report, 2026 House race ratings: 18 toss-up seats (10 Democratic-held, 8 Republican-held) of 435; roughly eight in ten districts remain safe for one party. cookpolitical.com →
    Cook's initial 2026-cycle ratings, verified August 7, 2026; kept as the scorecard's fixed baseline. Cook's ratings as of September 11, 2026 (as compiled by 270toWin) count 21 toss-ups and 365 safe seats after the 2025–26 redraws.
  • S35
    U.S. Department of the Treasury, remarks by the Secretary of the Treasury before the Financial Literacy and Education Commission, July 27, 2026: 7 million children enrolled in the federal seeded accounts launched July 4, 2026. The IRS's own last published count (IR-2026-42, March 31, 2026) was more than 4 million children signed up, more than 1 million of them with elections for the $1,000 pilot deposit (births 2025 through 2028). home.treasury.gov →
    A partial savings vehicle for a limited cohort, not the proposed universal retirement transition. Corrected September 13, 2026: an earlier version of this record gave an unsourced pilot-eligibility figure and the wrong date; see the child-investment-accounts Case for the full record.
  • S36
    Louisiana Secretary of State, Closed Party Primary Elections — Louisiana switched to closed party primaries for federal races effective 2026 (first closed primaries held May 2026). sos.la.gov →
  • S37
    Iowa Code ch. 42 (2026), §42.4, redistricting standards: population equality, contiguity, the fewest county and city divisions, compactness, and a prohibition on using incumbent addresses, voter party affiliations, previous election results, and demographic data other than population counts except as the Constitution and federal law require. legis.iowa.gov →
    Verified September 10, 2026. The working precedent for the public districting formula.
  • S38
    Jowei Chen and Jonathan Rodden, “Unintentional Gerrymandering: Political Geography and Electoral Bias in Legislatures,” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 8, no. 3 (2013): 239–269. Neutral, compact simulated districts produce a pro-Republican seat bias where Democratic voters are concentrated in cities. doi.org →
    Verified September 10, 2026. Why the formula claims a neutral process, not a neutral outcome.