Larry Lessig Goes Even Bigger: May Run For President On The Single Issue Of Money In Politics
from the go-big-or-go-home dept
Last year, Larry Lessig got plenty of attention for his MAYDAY PAC, which was an attempt to raise a bunch of money to back candidates who promised to reform campaign finance laws. The 2014 campaign was supposed to be a "test" to raise around $12 million to see what could be done, with an eventual goal of raising a lot more for the 2016 campaign. Even the 2014 campaign was somewhat audacious (and somewhat misunderstood). And after the 2014 election, many argued that MAYDAY was a failure in that it really failed to have much, if any, impact in the campaigns that it took part in. To me, it seemed a bit premature to make that argument, as the whole point of experimenting and testing is to learn, but in politics everything is a horse race, and there is little in the way of long term thinking or strategy.Either way, just a few weeks ago Lessig announced that he was handing MAYDAY over to Zephyr Teachout, a well-known professor who used to be director of the Sunlight Foundation -- and who caused a political stir last year by doing surprisingly well in running against Andrew Cuomo for governor of NYC. Teachout taking over MAYDAY seemed like a natural fit.
But what of Lessig? His own post mortem on MAYDAY suggested he wasn't ready to give up the fight, and it appears that the results of the first round of the MAYDAY experiment didn't scare him off from taking chances on making incredibly big bets. Crazy bets. Because now he's basically running for President. Sort of. Maybe. You kind of have to watch this video to understand:
For now, Lessig is trying to raise $1 million by Labor Day to see if this is possible. If he doesn't raise that much, the plan will be shut down (and no one's money will be taken).
I'm not sure what to make of all of this, frankly. Lessig has been trying for a bunch of moonshot ideas over the past few years -- including holding a new Constitutional Convention, among other ideas like MAYDAY and campaign finance reform. You can't say he isn't being bold and trying some crazy big strategies in trying to make these things an issue. And I really appreciate and respect Lessig and his way of thinking about all of this. But... something about this latest move feels almost too gimmicky. Yes, to get people to actually take on this issue, perhaps a gimmick is needed. And maybe Lessig is right to keep trying ever more audacious gimmicks until he finds the one that clicks. I'm glad he's trying and I hope he succeeds -- and chances are I'll donate to this campaign. But it still feels like a gimmick, and it bugs me that we need gimmicks to fix our political system. I'm guessing that Lessig might actually agree with that statement, but argue that there's no way around this unfortunate fact, so he's going to play the game. I just wish it didn't need to happen that way.
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Filed Under: citizen equality act, corruption, larry lessig, money in politics, politics, president, referendum, referendum candidate
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I don't support this.
It's important to note that Lessig, ultimately, is campaigning to restrict certain freedoms.
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Re: I don't support this.
There.
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Re: I don't support this.
I now come along and give him 90 million dollars to compete. my candidate goes out and smears your candidate, and with him even saying the untruth about your candidate he is able to blast that on the local radio stations and media every 5 mins but your candidate can only do it once per day.
You know if you say a untruth enough that people will start to believe it, and then it become public knowledge that the untruth is now truth, but remember I bought this election with my 90 million and you can not compete with me as I have 100 times more $$$ than you do.
Now is that fair?
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Re: Re: I don't support this.
Far fetched? You bet, but its not as ridiculous as the way its handled these days. At least you remove the aspect of wasted funds and questionable contributions that permeates these elections. But I also believe a sitting president should not campaign for another term while running the country.
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Re: Re: I don't support this.
I understand that it's received folk wisdom. But does anyone have a pointer to scientific study?
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dog damn, i think we gots another child libertarian...
*snort*
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But then when you turn right around and start arguing —in effect— that no one except MPAA studios should be permitted to make political movies to show on pay-per-view, then you've lost me.
At that point, what the fuck are you really arguing for?
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Re: I don't support this.
It's important to note that Lessig, ultimately, is campaigning to restrict certain freedoms.
I have concerns over certain kinds of limitations -- and I think that people misunderstand the Citizens United decision. But Lessig is mostly focused on creating much better incentives for public funding of elections, through a rather creative voucher system. This does not necessarily mean limiting freedoms, but gives much more incentive for politicians to go the public funding route *rather than* the corporate/donor funded route. It has the potential to greatly level the playing field, by taking away the core instrument of corruption -- the need to cultivate donors. That doesn't need to limit freedoms. It just shifts the incentives.
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Re: Re: I don't support this.
Turning to Professor Lessig's proposals now, the people who are going to be most attracted to these policy prescriptions are people who don't really see the broad problem in having the government ban books.
As a practical political matter, it seems to me that Professor Lessig is inviting a skiing party down a steep, ice-covered hill.
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Re: Re: I don't support this.
Heck, I might even endorse free TV airtime for candidates.
Otoh, once upon a time, we had hoped that the internet would change some of that TV-driven dynamic.
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Re: Re: Re: I don't support this.
That's called "equal time" if it still exists. It did NOT call for reduced rates but did require stations to give the same considerations for all candidates and issue positions. That meant they had to charge the same fees to everybody, no discounts allowed; and they had to provide the same or comparable airtime to all, no putting one candidate on at 1800 hrs and their opponent on at 0300 hrs.
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I'm calling for direct subsidies to candidates, in the form of reduced-rate or free access to the public airwaves.
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Lessig as VP would interesting.
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I Nominate Jon Stewart
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Re: I Nominate Jon Stewart
FWIW, apparently Lessig asked Stewart to run instead of him, but it didn't work:
https://twitter.com/alisternburg/status/631144096204128256
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So, I'd guess he'd want to get Sanders to be his VP, so he could just turn things over to Sanders later, I dunno.
It's a nutty but interesting idea. Put simply: Lessig is worried that if everyone even elected Sanders somehow that people would say "they elected him for health care, for education, for civil rights…" and so it wouldn't be an absolute mandate *specifically* for overturning Citizens United…
But Sanders *has* made Citizens United a *key* focus, with his whole emphasis on refusing PAC money. I think Lessig isn't giving Sanders enough credit for really emphasizing this.
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Bernie Sanders would fix much of this
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Treating the symptom instead of the disease
But money in politics is there because politicians have the power to choose winners and losers, to rig markets, to implement regulations that protect incumbents, to choose who is taxed and who isn't, etc., etc., etc.
As long as politicians have those powers (as opposed to the far more limited powers intended by the founders), those with power and wealth will find ways to influence politicians - one way or another.
No law can prevent that - laws can only force the influence under the table, underground where it can't be seen.
Money in politics is the symptom. Too much power in the hands of politicians is the disease.
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This doesn't seem like something a President can do.
Which is fine with me. The SJWs already have far too much power to make their opponents shut up as things are now.
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Re: This doesn't seem like something a President can do.
Then Scalia was born in March of 1936, and Kennedy was born in July of 1936, so they're both 79 years old. After that, Breyer, born on August 15, 1938, has his birthday in just a few days.
Thomas, born in 1948, is a mere 67 years old. Alito 1950. Sotomayor 1954. Chief Justice Roberts in 1955, and finally Kagan in 1960.
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The fundamental problem with online crowdfunding for politics
That is, unlike open-source projects and non-profit groups, politicians usually have restrictions placed on international *monetary* contributions.
One of the reasons Kickstarter, Wikipedia, etc. are so successful is that *anyone* *anywhere* can contribute some money, no matter how small.
But no matter how much I respect Larry Lessig and desire to contribute, I can't, because I'm a Canadian (not US) citizen.
I'm not saying that those restrictions are wrong -- I don't know anything about campaign finance -- but I think this crucial regional limit on potential supporters needs to be recognized so that political projects are not unfairly held to the standard of other crowdfunding projects without such restrictions (e.g. Kickstarter game pitches) and then found wanting in comparison.
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potus?
Until they are jailed we no longer have a government of the people. We have oath breaking treasonous occupiers who no longer have MORAL AUTHORITY for ANYTHING, but they do still have men with guns authority, and so why would I POSSIBLY CONSENT or want to vote for that!?
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A party could get second place with 40% of votes in each circumscription but get no seats, as long as they don't win at any. That's why unsatisfied Republican and Democrat politicians won't leave to organize a third party with a purer ideology (like libertarian or anticorporation).
Here in Uruguay, a party with roughly 1% of votes gets one of the 99 seats, no matter where did they get the voted. And we also have proportional representation of departments, with a little overrepresentation of less populated drpartments.
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