American Promise is a nonprofit organization that is coordinating its efforts to pass and secure ratification of an amendment to the United States Constitution that would allow greater campaign speech regulation than the Supreme Court has allowed under the First Amendment. ¹

Background

American Promise’s main purpose is to secure passage and ratification of an amendment to the United States Constitution that would allow the U.S. Congress and the states to place and enforce limits on spending and contributions in campaigns, elections, or ballot measures. ²

Activities

American Promise maintains an American Promise Candidate Pledge to encourage candidates and elected officials at all levels of government to pledge on the record that they will use their power and influence to advance the proposed amendment. ³

American Promise hosts various events every year ⁴ such as gatherings that feature activities that work towards passing campaign speech regulation amendments like the Virginia Democracy Day ⁵ and the National Citizen Leadership Conference. The National Leadership Conference is a two-day event where hundreds of different figures, including Republican and Democratic members of Congress from various states, gather to discuss to discusses various issues that are generally centered around the proposal. This event also features various speaking activities and leadership training with American Promise’s Civic Courage program. This yearly event was first established and convened in October of 2016. ⁶

American Promise is one of the approximately 250 members of the Declaration for American Democracy, ⁷ a coalition of left-of-center activist groups that advocates for various electoral administration and governmental policy changes surrounding elections including placing restrictive regulations on speech acts related to political campaigns and enacting automatic voter registrations. ⁸

People

Jeff Clements is the president and board member of American Promise and American Promise Education Fund. He is also the founder of Whaleback Partners LLC, an organization that provides investments to businesses in the local agriculture economy. He has practiced law for three decades in public service as the assistant attorney general and chief of public law enforcement bureau in the Attorney General’s Office in Massachusetts. He also practiced law in private practice as a partner in a major Boston law firm. ⁹

Since 2010, he has been a major advocate for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. FEC and allow the states and U.S. Congress to set more comprehensive limits on campaign spending in U.S elections than are allowed under the First Amendment. ¹⁰ He graduated from Cornell Law School, with the degree of juris doctor, magna cum laude and from Colby College with a bachelor’s degree in government. ¹¹

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3. “About the Candidate Pledge Program.” American Promise. Accessed January 22, 2023. https://americanpromise.net/about-the-candidate-pledge-program/?swcfpc=1.
4. “Events Calendar.” American Promise. Accessed January 22, 2023. https://americanpromise.net/events/list/?hide_subsequent_recurrences=1.
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10. Isquith, Elias. “The “rubber stamp” SCOTUS: How Corporations’ Ugly Myth Became Law.” Salon. Last modified September 30, 2014. https://www.salon.com/2014/09/30/the_rubber_stamp_scotus_how_corporations_ugly_myth_became_law/.
11. “Jeffrey Clements.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 20, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-clements?original_referer=.