Bill expands U.S. sanctions on Nicaragua through 2035.
S. 5369 — Restoring Electoral Fairness and Opposition Rights through Mandates for Accountability Act of 2026 · Filed by Ted Cruz (R-TX) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Aug 7, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The bill keeps and expands U.S. sanctions against Nicaragua's government. It targets officials, the gold sector, and groups that help Russia or Iran. Sanctions stay until Nicaragua holds free elections. They also stay until Nicaragua stops violence and investigates protester deaths. The Secretary of State can add more sectors to sanctions without Congress voting.
Who it affects
Nicaraguan government officials and companies face sanctions. Nicaraguan opposition groups may gain leverage. U.S. companies doing business in Nicaragua could face problems.
One thing to notice
The Secretary of State can add sectors to sanctions without Congress voting. Reporting to Congress stops after three years, even though sanctions may stay until 2035.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Aug 7, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Aug 7, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Foreign Relations · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $60,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 3 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Ted Cruz, who sponsored the bill, received $526,115 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Climate Innovation Action — $60,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- sanctions — Penalties that stop trade or freeze money to pressure a government.
- Secretary of State — The cabinet official who runs U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (8,272 characters) on Aug 16, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 10, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-23.
“Bill expands U.S. sanctions on Nicaragua through 2035.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s5369/simple Report an error