Larry Lessig Launches Crowdfunded SuperPAC To Try To End SuperPACs
from the fighting-superpacs-with-superpacs dept
Larry Lessig is thinking big (as per usual) and taking a "moonshot." Today he announced the launch of the MAYDAY Citizens' SuperPAC, in which he's hoping to crowdfund $1 million to help elect people to Congress who will help reform the political system to try to take money out of politics -- basically a SuperPAC to end all SuperPACs. This project has an interesting twist on traditional crowdfunding: nothing will happen if the goal isn't met, but if it is, then two interesting things will happen: a matching donation and a second round, seeking $5 million:We’ve structured this as a series of matched-contingent goals. We’ve got to raise $1 million in 30 days; if we do, we’ll get that $1 million matched. Then we’ve got to raise $5 million in 30 days; if we do, we’ll get that $5 million matched as well. If both challenges are successful, then we’ll have the money we need to compete in 5 races in 2014. Based on those results, we’ll launch a (much much) bigger effort in 2016 — big enough to win.Lessig has put together a video explaining all this as well:
The ultimate aim is to spend enough to win a majority in Congress committed to fundamental reform by 2016. We’ve spent the last year gaming out how much that would cost. I think it is feasible and possible — if we can take these first steps successfully now.
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Filed Under: corruption, crowdfunding, larry lessig, mayday, money and politics, politics, superpac
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Whaaa?
Until they publicly reveal their manifesto, I won't put much stock in this.
Reform can be anything good or bad.
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Re: Whaaa?
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Re: Whaaa?
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Re: Whaaa?
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He only needs enough to get word out and have people support him during election.
Once someone takes on the monumental task of outlining each Candidates track record and rhetoric in decent context, it will be much easier to change the direction of a money machine without having to compete with their war chest.
We may be in the super information age, but the only thing that seems to be super about it is the sheer amount of misleading or outright dishonest information drowning out the truth!
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Effort that most aren't willing to put forth.
Don't make me look it up, just tell me the answer!
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Money out of politics
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Re: Money out of politics
You can never get money out of politics, both are intrinsic to each other for both good and bad reasons. The media factor is quickly becoming obsolete, the mainstay of political affiliation is far more social underpinning than media based.
The media will never get an infamous person elected no matter how much money they have. Despite the majority of people being stupid to a fault, the stupid is fairly well distributed across all ideologies. Which leaves the people that can still think for themselves to fight and hash out things and actually still have a chance to make a better outcome.
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I am going to support this. I don't want to have to say I could of helped. I want to be able to say I did help.
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The biggest problem is the Supreme Court, not congress
It's the Supreme Court that overturned over a century of campaign finance and anti-corruption laws on political donations. Even if congress passes those laws or ones just like it all over again, the idiots on the court can just strike them down all over again.
That means only 1 of 2 solutions are possible.
1) Get a president who's committed to stopping the influence of money in politics, and a senate that supports the same thing. Wait for enough openings on the Supreme court for the president to fill so that Citizen's United and other such cases can be overturned.
or
2) Pass a constitutional amendment saying that money is not free speech, and congress can regulate how money is spent on elections however it wants.
Either solution would take many years, and large rather than slim majorities would be needed in the case of a constitutional amendment.
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Re: The biggest problem is the Supreme Court, not congress
They can elected and appointed by Executive and Legislative branches. Supreme's can be impeached as well if they can be found to have tarnished the SCOTUS.
The root problem has been and will always be, Congress. It all starts and stops there. They can make the President Heal, they can raise and strike down any court in the land except SCOTUS.
Do you seeing them doing their job?
Or do you see them languish in near unmitigated corruption?
The very first thing we must do is rid ourselves of any Public official that has server more than 10 years... regardless of how awesome they are.
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Re: Re: The biggest problem is the Supreme Court, not congress
Also, while supreme court judges could be impeached, it'll never happen for several reasons.
1) While technically anyone congress doesn't like could be impeached and removed from office, that would look very much like an abuse of power and overreach on congress' part. No serious politician would ever do it.
2) In order to get the votes to actually impeach a Supreme Court judge they'd need to have done some serious law breaking. And even then, partisan interests could keep a criminal on the court.
Look at Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, everyone knows he broke the law by illegally hiring a prostitute and having sex with her, yet zero public figures called for his resignation, because the governor of his state, who would pick his replacement, was a member of the other party.
So, while there's a whole lot of people in congress who want more money to flow in our elections, it wouldn't matter if things were reversed in congress. The courts would still strike all their reforms down.
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If you want me to believe
The problem that is driving all this money to be spent trying to acquire office is due to the fact that most of the time, once someone is in office they are in office for the rest of their lives. This is a huge corrupting force, more powerful IMHO than all this money being thrown about. In fact all the money in politics is a symptom of the lifelong political power and privilege that comes with congressional office nowadays.
Screw Citizens United and all the other campaign finance decisions of the Supreme Court, we NEED to get lifelong political office seekers out of permanent positions in Washington. We have needed to do this for a long time.
Limiting campaigns will not fix anything, sending those entrenched in power for decades at a time packing will.
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Re: If you want me to believe
#1. Term limits for Congress critters... The American people have proven they cannot govern themselves well enough to remove their own corrupt politicians.
#2. Remove all lifetime benefits from having served in public capacity. You should never EVER be able to retire from public service, EXCEPT those whom have fought and experience combat deployment.
#3. Any law Congress levies against the Citizenry, must first be applied to them by 1 year in advance, giving them sufficient time to rethink their overwhelming stupidity when it occurs.
These must all become Amendments.
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Re: Re: If you want me to believe
Agree completely.
And I would go a bit farther. To enforce more of the "Cincinatus Ethic" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnatus), I would limit -LIFETIME- public office service (Local,State and Federal) to a maximum of 20 years.
.
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This eliminates money from selecting winners, & gets the House back to representing the normal population, as it was originally intended to. It also puts normal people in office, which I thought was the point of the House. It would also make it difficult for industries to groom replacements in advance.
If we add transparency rules to lobbying efforts & the equivalent, it should straighten things out quite a bit.
This could also force the language Laws are written in to be simplified as to be understandable by the citizenry w/o assistance.
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Second, I would hate to see a budget passed by 435 people who have no interest in politics or budgets. It would be a mess.
Third, it would be a total crapshoot as to who gets in. The people selected might not hold the same views as the people they are supposed to represent. Although I suppose that with 435 members, the math says it's very unlikely that a majority of those 435 would hold a view that's not held by, at the very least, a large minority of the population.
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So... not much different than the situation at present, then?
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And what if I am some nut job Tea Bagger or Klansman or survivalist? That isn't representative of the majority of the people in my Congressional district-though we do have such imbeciles amongst us.
Or worse yet, what if my wife was called to serve? She's a hopeless do-gooder who'd vote to spend our country into bankruptcy (not unlike the current Bozo's), ban red meat and double malt Scotch.
Sorry, back to the drawing board for you.
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One thing you got right though. I too believe that it should be a prerequisite for candidacy that the individual nominated does not actually want the post.
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This will probably make the problem worse. When members of Congress know they'll soon need another job, they have an increased incentive to help out the industries they're supposed to be overseeing, so that they can continue to pay the bills after term limits kick them out of their current job. We already have enough of a problem with the revolving door. Term limits just make the door revolve faster.
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If there is no coverage, then they are scared and trying to hide this. This means it is possible, and the people only have to try.
If they over cover this, then they are scared and trying to make it seem like everyone did their job, and there is nothing left to do.
If they cover it just enough, that would be awesome to get the people to know about it.
I wonder if Fox can put away the Anti-Spring Break drum for a while, and CNN can interrupt their breaking news of Flight 370.
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1990's "Contract With America"?
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/22411
The more recent turnovers in Congress resulted in more broken promises, indicating that even higher turnover rates don't fix things.
Larry Lessig's effort might be a noble cause, but if history is any guide, it's naive to believe that the US Congress's deeply-embedded corruption can ever be diminished, regardless of which people or party are in charge.
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Re: 1990's "Contract With America"?
In all seriousness, I will never forgive the Newtwit for killing off the Office of Technology Analysis
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Fighting fire with fire?
I don't exactly see how that works here, though. Wouldn't we just wind up with a bigger fire?
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Lessig AMA
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