REVEALED: Democrats say federal government could become ‘illegitimate,’ plot effort to ‘reform’ Constitution

In a Zoom call that took place on March 25, 2026 with the Democratic Constitution Forum, Walt Roberts of IMIP/Thriving Together US, said that he is “teamed up with the leaders of the Democracy Renewal Group. That's 300 people who used to be USAID people, you know, doing democracy work and authoritarian pushback all over the globe.”

Another participant who identified himself as being part of the DSA and the DSA Unity Group Caucus, which he said fought for the DSA’s program to say that “ultimate goal is a democratic constitution based on universal and equal suffrage and a unicameral legislature.”

During the meeting, Danielle Reiff of the Democracy Renewal Group, spoke on the November midterms and what may happen, saying that she is “foreseeing a crisis of legitimacy around the November election.”

She said, citing how some Americans are concerned about the legitimacy of elections, “I think we have an opportunity. I think the midterms, especially if there's a meltdown around the, in midterms and a crisis of legitimacy, could be a real window of opportunity for us to say, okay, some red lines have been crossed, and we can say, but you know what we really need to do is transform our system. Let's start a conversation about that. But in order to do that in November and take advantage of the meltdown scenario, we have to get super, super organized in the next seven months. So I think this is a plan that needs to be on steroids.”

Reiff later spoke on efforts to create a new constitutional convention. “I mean, the conversation broadly that we've started is what happens if we need to vote extra constitutional to create the kind of transformation that we'd all like to see? And so, you know, we've talked about a sequence of like an important convening, maybe like a third Continental Congress that actually you know comes up with a declaration that says here are the red lines.”

“Like if these red lines in our democracy are crossed, we will move into an extra-constitutional process. And here's what it looks like, you know. And then maybe you go right into a constitutional convention, or maybe there's a national dialog in between that gives some time and space for people to come together, build the coalition, figure out what are our shared values. How are we going to do a constitutional convention?”

She said that she feared “jumping straight into a constitutional convention too soon before the situation is ripe could actually be dangerous. But I do think we can start a path, start to get us on a path that lands us when the timing and ripeness are there to a democratic constitutional convention.”

She said that the pathway that needs to be taken to get to a constitutional reform process needs to include “broad support and legitimacy, so that it's not just sidelined as partisan, or you know, something that can be easily dismissed or sabotaged.”

In a separate meeting that took place on August 13, 2026 with RAD, Reiff said that “there’s also the path” in which “we end up in a very acute legitimacy crisis sometime in the next few months or the next few years, where literally our federal government becomes illegitimate. And in that moment, I believe, and what we know from experiences around the world is that we can take that breakdown moment and leverage it for a big structural reform, you know, refounding moment.”

RAD co-coordinator Paul Zietz said that United Democracy Alliance, which was described as a “huge coalition of the blocking movement,” has “developed a set of red lines that are now being refined in terms of indicators and metrics, and they're working on creating a situation room so that as we go into the midterm election, they're going to be able to provide real-time updates, real-time information to the movement of movements, so that we can respond, you know, to whatever might unfold, either in 26 or when we go into the 28 elections.”

He said the effort is being led under the National Security Leaders of America, which consists of 1,600 “retired cross-partisan military intelligence diplomats ambassadors that are all, you know, working on protecting our democracy.”

Zietz said that RAD had created an “options memo” for governors, “because if the federal government is deemed to be illegitimate by whatever crossing of whatever red lines that and everyone agrees to that, then the governors become the leading governing authority under the current republic framework of our Constitution. So, this memo was designed for them.”

John Mongan, a former State Department official, said he was able to get it to the governors of Massachusetts, California, and Illinois, Mongan saying Massachusetts “didn’t want to touch it,” while the latter two were “interested in getting involved if someone else would take the lead on it.”

He said that governors and other leaders needed to start making plans for what functions of the federal government they would have to assume, how they would coordinate with each other, how they would reach out to foreign governments “and all the other things they would have to do to basically wall off these illegitimate individuals and keep on trying to run the country, or at least parts of the country, in the absence of a functioning federal government.”

He said that the idea “is not a concept for a secession, no one is talking about leaving the United States.”