Mark Moran — Independent — Virginia 2026

The Common Benefits Plan

Named for George Mason · Virginia Declaration of Rights · Section 3 · June 12, 1776

Mason wrote
the rights.

George Mason wrote them into law in Virginia in 1776. This is the plan to make them real.

Washington Warned Us in 1796. We Did Not Listen.

In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned that two parties would divide the country, make it ungovernable, and be exploited by foreign and domestic interests to seize power. That is exactly what happened. For forty years we have been debating abortion. For forty years we have been debating trans sports. Nothing changes. Nothing is designed to change.

The debate is the product.

While we fight each other, the same donor class funds both parties and writes the tax code for themselves. The national debt is $37.6 trillion as of September 2025. The United States paid $970 billion in interest on that debt in FY 2025 alone — more than the entire defense budget. The median home price has doubled relative to income in a generation. The student loan balance is $1.7 trillion. These are not accidents. They are the predictable outcome of a political system designed to serve its funders.

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism."

— George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

2026 — The 250th Anniversary

In 1776, George Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights — the first document in American history to enumerate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as natural rights belonging to all people, not granted by any government. Jefferson read it and built the Declaration of Independence from it. Madison read both and wrote the Constitution around them. Two hundred and fifty years later, a 22-year-old Virginian cannot afford a home, cannot afford college, and cannot afford to get sick. The 250th anniversary of those documents is not a celebration. It is a reckoning. The Common Benefits Plan is Virginia's answer — written in the same state, in the same spirit, for the same reason.

“That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community… and that, whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it.”

— George Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights, Section 3, June 12, 1776

The Virginia Baton

June 12, 1776

George Mason

Writes the Virginia Declaration of Rights

The source document. First in American history to enumerate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as natural rights — not government grants.

July 4, 1776

Thomas Jefferson

Carries it into the Declaration of Independence

Reads Mason’s Declaration and builds the Declaration of Independence from it. The language is Mason’s. The document is Jefferson’s. The argument is Virginia’s.

December 15, 1791

James Madison

Locks it into the Bill of Rights

Mason refuses to sign the Constitution without a Bill of Rights. His insistence forces Madison’s hand. The Bill of Rights is Mason’s final victory, delivered through Madison.

November 3, 2026

Virginia

Sends the baton back to the Senate floor

250 years after Mason wrote the rights, Virginia sends an independent senator who owes nothing to either party — to make them real. Three bills. That is the entire platform.

Whether you voted for Trump or Biden. Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice. Whether you are trans or you disagree with trans sports.

What do we all actually want?

We want liberty — to own the land beneath our feet. We want our pursuit — the one we share, the one that unifies us. We want life — to stay healthy without going bankrupt. George Mason wrote those rights into law in Virginia in 1776. Jefferson carried them into the Declaration. Madison locked them into the Constitution. The same donor class that funds both parties has spent fifty years making all three impossible. That ends with this seat.

The Common Benefits Plan is how we take them back.

Day One — Bill I of 3

OUR PURSUIT

Mason wrote it. Jefferson declared it. Madison locked it into law. The pursuit of happiness belongs to all of us — and this bill funds it.

Funded by: 2% data center gross revenue fee + AI Automation Fee

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google built their AI empires on American land, American power grids, and American fiber. Northern Virginia is home to the world's largest concentration of data centers — over 300 facilities in Loudoun County alone, drawing more than 3,000 megawatts of power. Virginia offered these companies rezoned land, subsidized power rates, and tax abatements running for decades. The return to Virginia communities: near zero.

At the same time, Goldman Sachs Research (April 2023) estimated generative AI could expose 300 million full-time jobs globally to automation. McKinsey Global Institute (2017) projected up to 800 million jobs displaced by automation by 2030.

The machines replacing your job should pay to educate the person who held it.

The Data Center Fee

A 2% federal fee on gross revenue from data center operations nationwide. Not on profit — on revenue. You cannot offshore revenue from a building physically sitting on American soil. At current scale, the U.S. data center industry generates an estimated $100–150 billion in annual revenue. A 2% fee produces $2–3 billion annually. The AI Automation Fee — a payroll-equivalent charge on every human worker replaced by an AI system — runs in parallel, scaling directly with the pace of automation. Together they fully fund the system.

Free Education for Every American

Universal community college — any age, any background, free. Complete two years and the federal government funds your four-year public university degree, debt-free. No service requirement. No income test. Every American qualifies. The data centers that are replacing your job pay for the education of the person who held it.

Day Two — Bill II of 3

LIBERTY

Mason wrote it. Jefferson declared it. Madison locked it into law. Liberty is unalienable — and this bill makes it real.

Funded by: 0.1% fee on domestic stock exchange transactions

America was founded on the idea that any person willing to work could own the land beneath their feet. That idea has been destroyed. Private equity firms and institutional investors have purchased hundreds of thousands of single-family homes across the United States, converting them into rental properties and removing them permanently from the market for first-time buyers. In markets like Atlanta, Jacksonville, Charlotte, and Tampa, institutional investors own 25–28% of all single-family rental properties. In Richmond, Virginia, they own approximately 20% of the rental housing stock. This is not the free market. This is monopoly.

The median home price has risen from 3.5 times the median annual income in 1985 to over 7 times today. Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies (2024) found the United States is short approximately 4.5 million housing units. The shortage was created deliberately: after the 2008 financial crisis, housing construction fell by 70% and the skilled construction workforce shrank by 60%. Private equity moved in to profit from the shortage they helped create.

The National Mortgage Trust

A 0.1% fee on every domestic stock exchange transaction funds a National Mortgage Trust. Not a tax on income or savings — a fee on the financial system that has been extracting wealth from working families for decades. The Trust provides low-interest mortgage access to every first-time homebuyer.

The 50-Home Cap

Any publicly traded company is banned from purchasing or building single-family homes. Any individual entity or group of connected entities is capped at 50 single-family homes total. Capitalism works. Monopoly capitalism that converts the American Dream into a financial instrument does not. The cap is 50.

Day Three — Bill III of 3

LIFE

Mason wrote it. Jefferson declared it. Madison locked it into law. Life is unalienable — and this bill means you can afford to stay alive.

Funded by: Redirecting existing Medicare & Medicaid spending away from publicly traded corporations

The United States spends $4.9 trillion annually on healthcare — 17.6% of GDP (CMS, 2023). Medicare and Medicaid together account for approximately $1.9 trillion of that. The majority of those government dollars flow to publicly traded hospital systems, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical corporations whose primary legal obligation is to maximize shareholder returns, not patient outcomes.

The Commonwealth Fund's 2022 international health system comparison ranked the United States last among 11 high-income nations in overall healthcare performance, despite spending nearly twice as much per capita as the next-highest spender. Americans die younger, get sicker more often, and pay more for the privilege than citizens of any comparable country. This is not a funding problem. It is a structural problem.

The One Rule

No Medicare dollar. No Medicaid dollar. No government healthcare dollar of any kind goes to a publicly traded corporation. Period. This single structural change — removing the profit motive from government-funded healthcare — restructures the entire system over a 5-to-10-year transition period. No new tax required. The money is already there. It is being extracted as profit. We redirect it to patient care.

The Full Commitment

What I Will Do As Your Senator.

Three bills. Two standing commitments. That is the entire platform.

Day One

Introduce the Our Pursuit Bill.

A 2% gross revenue fee on data center operations funds universal free community college and debt-free four-year public university degrees. No service requirement. Every American qualifies. Our pursuit is shared. One direction. Together. One bill. Day one.

Day Two

Introduce the Liberty Bill.

A 0.1% fee on domestic stock exchange transactions funds the National Mortgage Trust. A ban on publicly traded companies purchasing single-family homes. A 50-home cap on all other entities. Liberty means owning the land beneath your feet. One bill. Day two.

Day Three

Introduce the Life Bill.

No government healthcare dollar goes to a publicly traded corporation. One structural rule. A 5-to-10-year transition. No new taxes. The money is already there. Life means staying healthy without going bankrupt. One bill. Day three.

Always

Defend the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment is not negotiable. George Mason — who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776 — understood that an armed citizenry is the final check on tyranny. I will defend it without qualification. The same political class that has used the Second Amendment as a fundraising tool for forty years without resolving anything will not find a more reliable defender of it than an independent who owes nothing to either party.

Always

Secure the Border.

The United States should have the most secure, most humane, and most accountable border in the world. That means knowing who is here, stopping the flow of fentanyl and cartel violence, and doing it without a surveillance state or a permanent federal police force. The National Guard — rotating from every state — is the right instrument. A graduated fee on international remittances creates economic accountability. Abolish ICE. Secure the border. Those two things are not contradictions.

Long Game

Work Toward the 28th Amendment.

Getting corporate money out of politics permanently requires a constitutional amendment. That is a 5-to-10-year process. I will work on it every day I am in the Senate. It is the foundation that makes everything else permanent.

Border Security

The Most Secure Border in the World. Without a Surveillance State.

A secure border and a free society are not opposites. The United States can know who is here, stop the flow of fentanyl and cartel violence, and end the exploitation of undocumented workers — without building a permanent federal police force, without a domestic surveillance apparatus, and without the cruelty that has defined enforcement for the past two decades.

Replace ICE with the National Guard.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement was created in 2003. In the twenty years since, it has grown into a $9.1 billion federal agency with a documented record of civil rights violations, wrongful deportations of U.S. citizens, and zero accountability to local communities. The National Guard — drawn from every state, rotating on assignment, accountable to governors and to Congress — is the right instrument for border security.

DHS FY2024 Budget Justification

A Graduated Remittance Fee.

Americans send approximately $150 billion abroad in remittances each year. A significant portion flows to countries whose governments have the least incentive to stop illegal emigration. Remittances from the United States represent 24.0% of El Salvador's GDP, 25.7% of Honduras's GDP, and approximately 19% of Guatemala's GDP. A graduated fee on international remittances creates direct economic accountability and generates revenue for border infrastructure without a single new tax on Americans.

World Bank: Personal Remittances Received (% of GDP), 2024

Stop the Fentanyl Flow.

Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45. More than 70,000 Americans died of synthetic opioid overdoses in 2022 alone. The vast majority of fentanyl entering the United States crosses the southern border through legal ports of entry, not between ports. The solution is advanced detection technology, intelligence-sharing with Mexican law enforcement, and the political will to treat fentanyl trafficking as the national security threat it is.

CDC: Drug Overdose Surveillance Data

Full Accounting. No Amnesty. No Mass Deportation.

There are an estimated 11 million undocumented people in the United States. Mass deportation is logistically impossible, economically destructive, and constitutionally fraught. Blanket amnesty rewards illegal entry. The answer is a structured, time-limited registration process that establishes who is here and provides a pathway to legal status for those with no criminal record who have been contributing members of their communities.

DHS Office of Immigration Statistics, 2022

None of This Happens Without Getting Money Out of Politics.

Liberty. Our Pursuit. Life. Three unalienable rights. Three things every American wants. Three things that have been deliberately kept out of reach by the same donor class that funds both parties. The reason none of this has been done is not that the ideas are bad. The reason is that the people who would lose money if these ideas became law are the same people who fund the campaigns of the people who would have to pass them. That is why campaign finance reform — the 28th Amendment — is not the fourth bill. It is the foundation.

The 28th Amendment

"The rights enumerated in this Constitution are the rights of natural persons only. Artificial entities established by law, including corporations, limited liability companies, and other such entities, shall have no rights under this Constitution, and shall be subject to such regulation as Congress and the States, within their respective jurisdictions, shall provide. The expenditure of money shall not constitute protected speech under the First Amendment of this Constitution."

In 1886, a railroad lawyer wrote a headnote on a Supreme Court case. That headnote — not a ruling, not the Constitution, not an act of Congress — became the legal basis for corporations having constitutional rights. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886). Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) built on that headnote 124 years later to open the floodgates of unlimited corporate spending in elections. The 28th Amendment corrects a 140-year mistake made by a railroad lawyer.

Mason Wrote the Rights in 1776.

Our Pursuit. Liberty. Life. Mason wrote them. Jefferson declared them. Madison codified them. Three unalienable rights. Three bills. That is the entire platform.

OUR PURSUIT

Funded by

2% data center gross revenue fee

Delivers

Free community college + debt-free four-year degree for every American

LIBERTY

Funded by

0.1% stock transaction fee

Delivers

National Mortgage Trust + 50-home cap on institutional buyers

LIFE

Funded by

Redirect existing Medicare & Medicaid spending

Delivers

No government healthcare dollar to publicly traded corporations

Plus the 28th Amendment as the foundation. That is the entire plan.

Three bills.
That is the promise.

Our Pursuit. Liberty. Life. George Mason wrote those rights into law in Virginia on June 12, 1776. Jefferson carried them into the Declaration three weeks later. Madison locked them into the Constitution fifteen years after that. Two hundred and fifty years later, a 22-year-old Virginian cannot afford a home, cannot pursue what is rightfully theirs, and cannot afford to get sick. Those documents were not promises. They were contracts. We are here to collect.

This campaign takes no corporate money — not from the private equity firms buying your neighborhood, not from the data centers using your land, not from the insurance companies profiting from your illness. This campaign is funded by people. Virginia wrote the rules of self-governance once. It is time to do it again.

All factual claims on this page are linked to their primary sources. Every figure is verifiable.