Steady State Letter To Congress Request
October 30, 2025
Subject: Request for a Government Accountability Office Assessment Addressing
Key Questions regarding U.S. Democratic Resilience
Dear Congressional Leaders and Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives,
As Congress fulfills its constitutional responsibility to safeguard the nation’s security and governance, it must be informed by rigorous, objective analysis. Under the National Security Act, the Director of National Intelligence is charged to ensure that timely and objective intelligence is provided to the President and to Congress.[1] While this mandate properly applies to foreign threats and actors, recent developments make clear that Congress now requires an equally structured understanding of the internal pressures affecting the resilience of American democracy, and the threats it now faces.
We recognize—and emphasize—that the U.S. Intelligence Community does not, and should not, collect or analyze intelligence about the United States itself. That prohibition is foundational to the separation between national security and domestic political life. Nevertheless, the analytic tradecraft developed within the IC is precisely the methodological discipline needed to evaluate trends in institutional strength, governance integrity, and rule of law in any country—including our own. Accordingly, we respectfully suggest that Congress consider directing the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to undertake a structured assessment, perhaps borrowing from the analytic tradecraft of the Intelligence Community, to answer a series of “Key Intelligence Questions” about the health and resilience of U.S. democratic institutions.[2]
Our recent analytic assessment, Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline (Oct. 16, 2025), found with moderate to high confidence that multiple interlocking trends are placing the United States on a trajectory toward “competitive authoritarianism”—a system in which democratic forms persist but are increasingly manipulated to entrench executive control. The study identified executive overreach and weaponization of the state, erosion of judicial independence, legislative weakness, structural flaws in electoral administration, and attacks on public knowledge and civil society as principal drivers.
We believe that Congress should pose the following Key Intelligence Questions to the GAO for systematic assessment:
Executive Accountability: What evidence exists of the politicization or selective application of executive powers—particularly within the Department of Justice, Department of Defense, and the Intelligence Community—and how might such patterns affect the rule of law and national-security decision-making?
Judicial Independence: What indicators demonstrate pressure on the federal judiciary’s impartiality or on attorneys’ ability to represent clients without retaliation? How do these pressures compare to those observed in states undergoing democratic backsliding abroad?
Legislative Capacity and Oversight: To what extent has Congress’s delegation of authority to the executive, combined with partisan obstruction, impaired its ability to serve as a coequal branch?
Integrity of the Civil Service: What are the projected impacts of efforts to reclassify career federal positions (e.g., “Schedule F”) on the neutrality, competence, and continuity of the government workforce?
Electoral Resilience: What factors—legal, structural, or technological—pose the greatest risks to free and fair elections and to the acceptance of legitimate outcomes by the public and political actors?
Public Trust and Information Integrity: How are disinformation campaigns, both domestic and foreign, eroding confidence in institutions and legitimizing anti-democratic behavior?
Freedom of Knowledge and Civil Society: How have federal policies affecting universities, research, media, and non-governmental organizations influenced the nation’s civic resilience and international standing?
Indicators of Authoritarian Trajectory: Drawing on comparative democracy indices (e.g., Freedom House, V-Dem, Bright Line Watch), how does the United States currently rank across dimensions of rule of law, checks and balances, and freedom of expression, and what are the implications for U.S. foreign-policy credibility?
The GAO is uniquely suited to conduct such a review, although we recognize such a task would be unusual, perhaps unprecedented. GAO possesses the independence, analytic capacity, and statutory authority to collect and synthesize information across agencies without compromising the civil liberties that restrict the Intelligence Community. A GAO report answering these questions would equip Congress with an empirical foundation for legislative oversight and for restoring public confidence in democratic governance.
We believe such an assessment could support efforts to preserve America’s constitutional order and global credibility. We respectfully urge that Congress direct the GAO to initiate this work expeditiously and to report its findings to the relevant committees of jurisdiction.
Respectfully,
Steven A. Cash
Executive Director
The Steady State
[1] 50 U.S.C. § 3024 (as amended) — Director of National Intelligence: Duties.
[2] 50 U.S.C. § 3027 — National Intelligence Council: Analytic Responsibilities.