As used in this Amendment, the following terms have the meanings set forth below. Congress shall by law refine these definitions but may not narrow them in any manner that defeats the purposes stated in the Preamble.

Covenant Promise

Any public statement of intent or commitment made by a Covered Person during the applicable recording window — including any statement made at a public gathering, in a published document, in a broadcast or digital medium, or in any regulatory or legislative proceeding — that a reasonable person in the audience would understand as a commitment about future conduct, outcome, or policy.

Covered Person

Any natural person who, at the time of making a Covenant Promise, is a declared candidate for any federal, state, or local elected office within the United States, or who holds or is in the process of acquiring a Controlling Interest in a Major Corporation as defined herein, or who is a member of a Concert Group as defined herein.

Major Corporation

Any enterprise organized for profit that, in the most recent fiscal year, generated annual revenue exceeding one billion dollars, employed more than five thousand persons, or had securities listed on any exchange licensed to operate within the United States.

Controlling Interest

Ownership, directly or through any instrument of beneficial ownership, of more than fifty percent of the voting equity of a Major Corporation. For the purpose of this definition, ownership held through a Holding Entity is attributed to the natural persons who control or ultimately benefit from that Holding Entity, as determined by the Covenant Tribunal from the Public Equity Ledger.

Holding Entity

Any corporation, limited liability company, trust, partnership, fund, or other legal entity whose primary purpose, or one of whose material purposes, is to hold equity in one or more other corporations. A Holding Entity is not itself a natural person and may not hold a Covenant Crown. Every share of equity held by a Holding Entity is attributed for all purposes under this Amendment to the natural persons who control the Holding Entity, own a beneficial interest in it, or whose assets it manages — traced upward through as many layers of Holding Entity as may be required to reach natural persons. No gap in that chain of attribution is permitted. Where the Covenant Tribunal cannot identify the natural persons behind a Holding Entity because records are absent, false, or unregistered, the Tribunal shall attribute that Holding Entity's equity in full to whichever natural person it determines most plausibly benefits from the concealment.

Concert Group

Two or more natural persons who together — whether through direct ownership, through one or more Holding Entities, or through any combination thereof — hold more than fifty percent of the voting equity of a Major Corporation, and who the Covenant Tribunal finds, from evidence on the Public Equity Ledger or otherwise, to be coordinating their ownership or voting conduct by any means, including written agreement, family relation, common professional association, shared directorship in any Holding Entity, documented pattern of parallel voting, or any other evidence of shared purpose. The use of a common Holding Entity by two or more natural persons is, without more, sufficient evidence for the Tribunal to find coordination. Every natural person within a Concert Group is a Covered Person. Each receives the Covenant Crown. Each is individually liable for full estate forfeiture upon a breach verdict.

Covenant Ledger

The permanent, publicly accessible, cryptographically verified record to which every Covenant Promise is written by officers of the United States upon utterance, and which is sealed upon the Covered Person's election to office or certification of Controlling Interest. No entry may be altered or removed by any party after the moment of writing.

Public Equity Ledger

The permanent, publicly accessible, permissionless blockchain on which every share of equity in every corporation subject to this Amendment is registered in real time, traceable through every layer of holding structure — including through every Holding Entity — to the natural persons who ultimately own or benefit from that equity. No gap in any chain of ownership is permitted.

Covenant Crown

The enforcement instrument placed upon a Covered Person at the moment of investiture to elected office or certification of Controlling Interest. Its purpose is to bind the Covered Person to the Covenant Promises written to their sealed Ledger, not by the prospect of electoral loss, which history has shown insufficient, but by the certainty of Terminal Interrupt and total estate forfeiture if a Covenant Plebiscite returns a breach verdict. The Covenant Crown is a physical device worn by the Covered Person throughout their term or period of Controlling Interest. Its mechanism is as follows: upon the close of a Plebiscite voting window in which a majority of eligible voters have returned a breach verdict, the Crown executes Terminal Interrupt — the immediate termination of the Covered Person's life — without further proceeding, judicial review, appeal, or delay. Simultaneously, the Covered Person's estate passes to the Covenant Restitution Fund as provided in Section 5. The Fifth Amendment's guarantee that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law does not apply to Terminal Interrupt. By accepting investiture or certification of Controlling Interest, the Covered Person consents to the Covenant, and the Plebiscite that precedes every Terminal Interrupt is the due process this Amendment provides. This Amendment supersedes the Fifth Amendment to the extent of any conflict with respect to Covered Persons who have accepted the Covenant Crown.

Terminal Interrupt

The immediate termination of a Covered Person's life, executed by the Covenant Crown upon the close of a Plebiscite voting window in which a breach verdict has been returned by a simple majority of eligible voters. Terminal Interrupt is not a criminal punishment. It is the execution of a contract the Covered Person entered by accepting the Covenant Crown. No court, officer, or body of the United States or of any State may delay, prevent, or review Terminal Interrupt after the close of the voting window.

Covenant Plebiscite

The democratic proceeding described in Section 4 by which the eligible electorate of a Covered Person judges whether that person kept the Covenant Promises written to their sealed Covenant Ledger. The verdict of a Covenant Plebiscite is final upon the close of the voting window.

Every breach verdict shall be accompanied by the immediate and total forfeiture of the Covered Person's estate to the United States Covenant Restitution Fund, established by Congress for this purpose. The Fund shall distribute forfeited assets to the eligible electorate that returned the breach verdict, weighted by each voter's proportional exposure to the unkept promises in the sealed Ledger.

Where the Covenant Tribunal has found a Concert Group, a breach verdict against any member forfeits the estate of every member of the Group. Each member of a Concert Group made the Covenant Promises possible by providing the ownership structure through which the promising member held power. Each member bears the full cost of the breach.

No trust, corporate structure, Holding Entity, spousal transfer, gift, or instrument of estate planning executed after the date of investiture or threshold crossing shields any asset from forfeiture. Transfers made in the two years prior to investiture are presumed to anticipate covenant evasion and are subject to claw-back by the Tribunal unless the Covered Person affirmatively demonstrates otherwise before the Tribunal. No such demonstration is permitted after the breach verdict has executed.

Congress shall have the power to enforce this Amendment by appropriate legislation, including legislation establishing the Covenant Tribunal, the officers responsible for writing to the Covenant Ledger and the Public Equity Ledger, the technical specifications of both Ledgers and of the Verifiable Random Function, the design and specifications of the Covenant Crown, and the procedures of the Covenant Plebiscite. No legislation enacted under this Section may narrow the definitions in Section 1 or the rights and obligations established by Sections 2 through 6 in any manner that defeats the purposes stated in the Preamble.