Larry Lessig: I'm All In | Hacker News Reader

Larry Lessig: I'm All In

theatlantic.com

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> But it weakened the credibility of the campaign. Was I really trying to be president? Or was I just trying to make a point?

Obvious answer: he’s just trying to make a point, the whole thing is a publicity stunt, and his campaign has never had and still does not have any credibility whatsoever.

> But the result was almost no national media focused on a campaign that was actually more viable than that of at least two of the other Democratic candidates,

“More viable” meaning that when you add up the poll numbers for Lessig plus those other two candidates, the percentage rounds to zero. Likewise they have no budget, no endorsements, a tiny donor base, no institutional support from the Democratic party, no grass-roots campaign organization, etc. etc.

Lessig’s approach to politics is to shout “HEY EVERYBODY, LOOK AT ME! I don’t have any experience or support, and I haven’t tried to engage with the political system before, but vote for me because all those other guys are corrupt!” That works if you’re a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump, running in a primary with a bunch of weak other candidates, targeting primary voters responsive to knee-jerk racism and insults. Lessig isn’t Trump though.

In the 2014 midterm elections his PAC raised a moderate amount of money mostly from Silicon Valley VCs, threw it at a handful of congressional races, and had absolutely zero impact on anything.

Seems like it’s not working out this time either.

The sad thing is that in some ways Trump is actually better at making Lessig's pitch than Lessig is, because while Trump is a clownish, racist buffoon he does have one thing Lessig completely lacks: charisma. He knows how to deliver a line, how to work a crowd. Those are important skills for a politician!

The thing is though, Lessig is completely right. Members of Congress spend 70% of their time raising money. They're not lawmakers, they're professional fundraisers. Think of a startup whose founders spent 70% of their time raising money, they would never get anything done. And since fundraising is now such an integral part of a Congressman's day to day, they have two classes of constitutes to think about: the voters, and the funders. And there is a very small group of people who give > 50% of all campaign cash and more or less have control over the entire country. This is why common sense laws that have majority support from the voters (gun control, marijuana legalization etc...) never get the traction they should. The funders don't want them, and they have the final say, not the voters. It's crazy how complacent people have become about government incompetence.

The becoming president and then resigning thing was weird. I'm glad he's dropping it, because you can hate the method all you want, and I too think he comes off really distant out of touch sometimes, but what he's saying needs to be heard.

Okay, but so what? Lessig has no chance of winning the Democratic Party nomination, so his campaign basically amounts to hijacking the primary to promote his message. Even if that message is “completely right”, so what? You think if Lessig gets a seat at the Democratic primary debates, he’ll be able to convince the Republicans in Congress to reverse course on campaign finance? Fat chance.

The most likely way to improve things at the moment is to elect another Democrat to office, and hope that Justice Scalia and/or Justice Kennedy resigns within the next few years, and the composition of the Supreme Court changes enough to reverse the Citizens United case. Also, hope that the Justice Department under a Democratic president stays aggressive about promoting voting rights around the country.

Beyond that, the next big hope is getting Democrats back in control of the House of Representatives, which probably can’t happen until after the 2020 census, and only if the Democrats gain control of enough state legislatures to redraw fairer district boundaries.

Having a single party in total control like that would be destructive to our country, no matter how you spin it. Both parties have legitimate points and interests that need to be represented in our system. I have never understood individuals that buy in 100% to a single party and just can't fathom the idea of the opposing party having any good ideas that need to be heard. Radicalism of any kind is dangerous - conservative or liberal.

Campaign finance reform is dead in the water as long as the Republicans control Congress (and as long as, per Citizens United, unlimited corporate spending on political advertising is considered protected speech).

So if we agree with Lessig that campaign finance reform is the most important national political priority, then electing a Democratic majority to the House is the necessary precondition. (I’m not saying you should agree with that, but it’s the premise of Lessig’s campaign.)

Not really - The premise of Lessig's campaign is that the party in power is irrelevant, neither can do it because they're both corrupted by their need to raise funds (and notably that the people funding them are not the public).

This is partly why his ideas to fix it seem drastic - there really aren't any non drastic solutions that can work.

https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_...

It has nothing to do with which party is in power - the affect of fundraising has corrupted the underlying incentives of the entire congress.

I found his book on the topic pretty convincing: http://republic.lessig.org/

As a follow up - I like Lessig a lot and agree with most of his ideas. The tragic thing is that politics isn't really idea driven at scale, it's more controversy and 'alpha monkey' driven. Lessig comes off as a quiet and reasonable academic - he needs somebody as his front man that can be more forceful that the media will give more attention to (though I do think his presentations are really good).

> unlimited corporate spending on political advertising is considered protected speech

Probably an unpopular opinion in this thread, but...

It has always been protected speech. The Supreme Court just declined to make a distinction between The New York Times and an arbitrary group of citizens (or even a single citizen) doing a one-off publication.

And people should really be thinking twice about the consequences of suppressing core political speech from those they don't like, be it a single citizen publishing a book (in oral arguments the government admitted that fell into the McCain-Feingold ban), an arbitrary group of citizens producing and distributing a video about a public figure running for office, or the eeeeevil NRA with its five million members amplifying their voices in collective action, which e.g. AlwaysBCoding in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10403569 explicitly wants to silence (note below that one of the ways to achieve such survey results is to keep gun owners in the dark about what's actually being proposed).

Is "democracy" really enhanced by silencing one very large but disfavored side of the debate, by the side that just so happens to be catastrophically losing it? Was this what our founderes were thinking about when they had the 1st Amendment to the Constitution enshrine freedom of speech and the press?

To bring this back to Hillary!, the subject of the * GOVERNMENT CENSORED * 2008 campaign Citizens United video---yes, this really happened, the FEC got the District Court for the District of Columbia to ban it, per Wikipedia it "found that the film had no purpose other than to discredit Clinton's candidacy for president", which obviously is beyond the pale---well, in the debate a few days ago, echoing Obama's recent statements, she called for outright mass confiscation of guns with a token "buyback" compensation. I could put this advertisment together in a few hours, a few minutes if I was into video editing: http://www.pagunblog.com/2015/10/16/hillary-clinton-endorses...:

The ad for the general election writes itself:

Scene 1: “In Australia, the government confiscated 1/3 of the guns in the country. In America, 1/3 would be around 120 million guns”.

Scene 2: footage from Australia of big piles of guns getting ready to be melted down (it’s on YouTube in a documentary).

Scene 3: footage of Hillary saying Australia is a good example of what we should do in America.

Note that the NRA helped demolish the 1988 Dukakis campaign for President publicizing an even more clear quote, "I do not believe in people owning guns, only police and military. I am going to do everything I can to disarm this state.", which was the sole copy on a solid black background that was the chilling, high impact cover of the November 1988 issue of the American Rifleman. They wouldn't have been able to do if McCain-Feingold had been law back then.

These people want to deny us the soap box to present these incontestable facts, effectively denying us the ballet box by keeping the vast majority of affected gun owners in the dark. They really should think about which box follows.

I agree with your all of your concerns. But what if all campaigns for office were funded with public money instead of private money?

Seems like it would solve some of the stated problems without arguing over what some would call a "loophole" but others would recognize as "free speech."

It's a good idea, but I don't see how the details work.

Would the government give out money to anyone who ran? How do you stop someone from using the funds for an election campaign that is indistinguishable from an audition for FoxNews or MSNBC contributor? No matter what the bar is for funding, the government would be picking winners and losers, right?

Would you ban private donations to campaigns? What about private speech that advocates for a candidate?

I'm not sure what that public money buys us that other regulations couldn't do better.

If we're worried about getting information to voters, requiring all public debates be in the public domain and posted in standard web formats seems like a sensible first step.

States are usually good testbeds for new ideas. Arizona has had "Clean Elections" with public money for 20 years and it works well.

There's examples elsewhere. Eg France has public campaign financing (any candidate getting more than X% of votes gets reimbursed, and there is a ceiling on how much you're allowed to spend on campaigning) and pretty strict fairness rules for political advertisement and airtime during campaign time.

But what if all campaigns for office were funded with public money instead of private money?

Then the game changes to who gets allocated said public money. Can't see how that wouldn't entrench the establishment a zillion times more. Note Trump's effectiveness because he can ignore the Republican Party donor class riot, which is in stark opposition to the majority of the party's base.

For those eeeevil people who nonetheless managed to get some, prosecuting them for not following one of the zillions of non-statutory but still the force of law rules they will inevitably break. Using another example of fighting gun control (because I know the most about how this has played out since the early '70s), here's just one notorious example of how that "works" http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/cac-info.htm (note, that's from a very partisan group, not the milquetoast NRA). That's sort of thing is also happening in Connecticut right now post-Sandy Hook.

Ah, and a useful analogy from fighting gun control: a lot of the laws in place and proposed are, as Michael Bane put it, "flypaper laws", designed to trap the unwary in "crimes" entirely lacking in mens rea or any actual good public policy results, resulting in a chilling effect on Constitutionally protected actions.

Same exact thing here, "campaign reforms" by the goo-goos, especially financial ones, have a greater chilling effect on genuine citizen grassroots actions. You have to hire really good legal council, and surprise, surprise, pretty much all those lawyers are already retained by the existing political parties and their units. And even then we see atrocities like the political prosecutions of Tom Delay and Ted Stevens, eventually reversed by higher courts but not before accomplishing the mission of removing them from politics.

Public financing is totally orthogonal to Citizens United. Even if campaigns were publicly financed, you couldn't stop independent organizations from blasting the airwaves with advertising supporting their preferred candidate.

> Even if campaigns were publicly financed, you couldn't stop independent organizations from blasting the airwaves with advertising supporting their preferred candidate.

In theory there could be a large tax on broadcasting/advertising with the proceeds going equally to every declared candidate who can meet some threshold number of constituent signatures. Then the more money people spend on political advertising, the more each politician gets to respond to it, but the entire scheme is content-neutral.

Yup. Citizens United wasn't a "is money speech case?" It was a case about whether the government could ban an unflattering movie about one of the leading candidates in the election. Its core political speech and always has been.

So where do you think we should go from here? Honestly. I share your misgivings about regulating political speech, but then we get things like

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/20...

Whether or not you agree with the slant of that article, it is a fact that Super PACs have enabled a massive centralization of political contributions - which, even if there's a limit on how much advertising can accomplish in general (cf. Trump), is still fundamentally undemocratic, and should be fought. We probably can't just go back to how things used to be, so how do we go forward?

If you want to keep corporations from giving money to politicians, the only effective way to do it is to stop politicians from giving corporations money.

Limiting the scope of government is not ideological -- its pragmatic and practical.

Or shaking corporations down. A whole lot of "gridlock" is merely milking proposals that'll help or hurt various companies and sectors, and collecting contributions to continue preventing the bad or pushing for the good. Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets is (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544103343) a really good book on the subject, taught me things I didn't know despite watching this sort of thing closely starting around the time of Watergate, like how there's a type of PAC a Congresscritter can establish that can be legally converted to subsidize their lifestyle.

This is one of the reasons for the constant changes in the tax code, despite the great uncertainty this creates for businesses and people. The obsession with short term results makes more sense when you realize long term financial planning is literally impossible (yeah, technically you might get that widget into production in a few years, but you really don't know how much money you'll be allowed to make from selling it).

And what about politicians who give money to corporations by limiting the scope of government (see: deregulating energy markets -> Enron buys up capacity and shuts it down -> rolling blackouts and $$ in their pockets as prices spiked)?

Regulations aren't the only cause of friction, perverse incentives, and exploitative business models. They're also pretty much the only tool we have against tragedies of the commons. Deciding which regulations are good and which are bad is inherently ideological, and the declaration that we should generally assume they're bad is so extreme that Adam Smith himself would disapprove.

I am not against unreasonable regulation, rather I'm in favor of broad principled regulation that takes the form laws passed by Congress and interpreted by courts. The Securities and Exchange Act of 1933 is a good example as was Glass-Steagall.

A law like Dodd-Frank on the other hand is an example of rent seeking by banks while Congress gets bought off while they act under the guise of 'reining in the banks.'

It enrages me that you got downvoted, because I've thought this for almost as long as I've had political thought. Corporations and lobbyists would stop buying politicians if the scope of power were limited.

> Having a single party in total control like that would be destructive to our country, no matter how you spin it.

I'd argue it has been destructive to our country. Specifically with the way healthcare reform was passed. All democrats by the slimmest margin. Absolutely no wider support for one of the biggest changes in our country in a long time, as far as domestic policy goes. The result? More fighting than before. Complete gridlock on every other issue.

There is half a valid objection to say that Bush wasn't bipartisan either. That's not entirely true. He certainly wasn't bipartisan enough, but he certainly tried more than once (remember medicare part D? no child left behind which was also sponsored by Kennedy?). I don't think the President and the democrats are solely responsible for the bad blood. But I think a wise person would recognize that lacking ultramajority (>70%) consensus for a major rule change was a major contributor.

That's a long unpacking of why I agree. We have to find resolutions that not just a majority of people agree with, but almost everybody wants.

Huh? 60% support in Congress plus the support of the President plus the support of the Supreme Court (when the ACA was tested there) plus the overwhelming support of the American people wasn't good enough for you? Under what circumstances, then, WOULD you be able to accept that health care reform was a good idea and a good thing to pass?

The constant infighting caused by Republicans is a result of their corporate masters not wanting any health care reform passed, ever. And the gridlock they have created is a result of their endemic racism and inability to accept a black President. They stated, out loud for God's sake, from day one, that their admitted goal was to block Obama from doing anything at all.

Sorry, have to disagree. The amount of support for the ACA was plenty. Asking for even more support for that, in a country where we have Fox News around to brainwash a significant portion of Americans, just really amounts to insisting on permanent gridlock.

60% is too low of a bar. 40% of a country vehemently disagreeing with a big change is a big deal. That's why the amendment process exists and is supposed to be used.

The amendment process isn't relevant here. Republicans were completely opposed to any version of Obamacare; amending it wouldn't have fixed matters for them. They were opposed in principle to any large new federal system to make it easier for citizens to buy health insurance.

Are you perhaps referring to Constitutional amendments?

Yes. Constitutional amendments require two kinds of super-majorities just for this reason. Even if technically an individual mandate didn't require a constitutional amendment (I believe it did), the spirit of the amendment process indicates that you should get 2/3 support to propose and 3/4 support to ratify fundamental changes to our government.

The Supreme Court, with a 5-4 majority of conservatives, ruled otherwise. So apparently, it didn't require a Constitutional amendment. At all. A law was plenty.

Racism? The runner up in the republican primary is a black man. When you accuse anyone you dislike or disagree with of racism, you cheapen the term and devalue the experiences of those who are actually suffering from it.

Also, in general, you seem extremely partisan and basically want to treat politics like a soccer match. People like you are the reason that we have a corrupt 2 party system. You can't conceive of any possible higher goal than rooting for your team.

I know you'll respond to this with another laundry list of how the republicans are the root of all evil. Thanks in advance for proving my point.

All in one comment (never mind the absurdity this guy has posted in the rest of this thread):

- Citing ridiculous, unfounded, and irrelevant statistics that actually, when viewed objectively, support the opposing argument

- Completely neglecting to address any of the actual points made previously

- Straw manning the republican argument (which represents the thoughts of an entire portion of our population)

- Labeling an entire party racist

- Speaking in broad, absurd general strokes about statements that never were (and, for that matter, never could be) made

- And the classic....bashing Fox News, the easiest target ever and the fast way to a pseudo liberal's heart

Bud, you've got everything it takes to be a political shill. If you aren't already getting paid for this nonsense, you should be.

You seem confused about cause and effect. The GOP started their policy of total obstructionism (no votes for any Democratic policies, period, regardless of merit) in December 2008, immediately after the elections. There were caucus meetings where this plan was laid out by leadership and agreed to by all members.

I don't think you can blame the passage of the ACA in 2009 for an obstruction policy begun in 2008. Time only flows in one direction, as far as I know.

If you were less ignorant about the subject, you would probably realize that the ACA passage without much Republican support was the result of Republican obstruction policies, not the cause of them.

I think that deserves a Citation Needed, seeing as how I don't remember that, and to double check on the putative effect, I drilled down in Wikipedia's list of 15 major enacted laws for 2009 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress#E...) and found that 8 were passed with large bipartisan majorities in both houses, 2 with large Senate bipartisan majorities.

A history of Republican obstructionism:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_02/...

No, claims by disaffected Republicans that are thoroughly impeached by, you know, the actual on the record roll call votes I cited, and those just for 2009. "You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts."

And if you expected the Republicans to roll over and play dead on Obamacare, something they'd successfully fought since Harry Truman, then, well, it might come as a surprise to you, but that what we sent them to Washington to (not) do for 7 decades.

And yet, I doubt you can point to any actual harm that occurred when Democrats did briefly hold both houses of Congress after Obama was elected. BTW, there never was "total control", at least not if you meant control of all three branches; the Supreme Court remained a solid conservative majority during that period. And the Republicans of course still had the filibuster, which is plenty of power to represent any "legitimate points and interests" that they sought to advance. And they were able to complain enough about Obamacare to flip the House back almost immediately in the next election.

If people vote for one party to control everything, maybe, just maybe, they had a good reason to do so. I see no reason to assume this would be automatically destructive to the country.

That's fine, but as a positive-only, non-normative argument, 'jacobolus is right: the GOP opposes campaign finance reform. The issue here is the most effective way for Lessig to accomplish what Lessig wants to accomplish, not the best way to represent both parties.

That's false, because the Democratic party today encapsulates both the old Republican and the old Democratic party. Hillary Clinton is essentially an Eisenhower Republican (if you place her into any European country she's in their conservative party), and Warren/Sanders are the left wing group.

The republican party of today is essentially a business lobby masquerading as a party. Place it into any European country, and it will be a far right extremist group.

Why does Europe always come up in these conversations, as if it's the litmus test for good policy? You do realize that's an entirely separate continent, with a different culture, history, and set of issues, right? Are you so ignorant to believe that the United States should actually be run like Europe?

To say that the Republican Party of today is a business lobby is an absurd and I'll-willed attempt to deliberately oversimplify, misinterpret, misrepresent, discredit, and ultimately slilence a legitimate political party that represents the thoughts and viewpoints of millions of American Citizens. Real people. Tax payers. Born here or abroad. Educated or self made. People that help make this country what it is.

I'm a registered Democrat and even I can't put up with this radical loyalist bullshit that aims to silence an entire portion of our population.

There is nothing ignorant in suggesting that the US should be run more like Europe. Northern European countries have higher living standards, and a pleasant lifestyle. The US has mass incarceration, poor healthcare, and gun violence.

The Republican party is financed by billionaires and corporations, which is perfectly in line with my comment that they are essentially a business lobby. What is one economic policy they have that is not pro-business?

That is not to say there are no good republican politicians; for example, John McCain is a good man. But the direction of the republican party today, with people like Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz, is decidedly psychopathic. Scott Walker is a borderline fascist. This is not a "political party" because it doesn't stand for people.

If memory serves, the Democrats had the POTUS, the House, and the Senate in complete control for 2 years. Didn't get anything done.

I may be incorrect about this, was a while ago.

When are you talking about? If it's Obama's first term, "complete" control would be a bit off – only 56 Dems in the Senate, and two left-leaning independents. Some aisle-crossing Republicans were needed for major legislation to pass.

And major legislation certainly did pass:

- Obamacare

- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus package)

- Dodd-Frank

- Fair Sentencing Act

- Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell

- Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress#M...

Hmm, those are your examples?

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/04/opinion/atlas-obamacare-poor-m...

http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/09/american-recovery-reinvestm...

Dodd-Frank = "Here, take my taxes and bail out the country. After that, create PMI. Even though I didn't cause the problem, in order to buy a house I now need to piss away 200-300 bucks a month that goes towards _NOTHING_ making it even harder to afford to own my own home." (Fuck yeah)

"Fair Sentencing Act. In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which reduced the sentencing disparity between offenses for crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1" (Thank Christ POTUS spent his valuable time analyzing the ratios of crack and coke, fuck yeah)

DADT, fully on board with this one. Sincerely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_o... (So more people can sue more people, b/c that was a problem before, excellent)

He is a failed 2-term POTUS. B/c of him, dems are destined to lose this election. He ran on change, funny how accurate he was.. 8 years later.

Isn't "fairer" roughly coterminous with "more likely to get people I like elected"?

I don't trust one major political party to draw unbiased boundaries any more than I trust the other.

“Fairer” in this case means “composition of each state’s congressional delegation roughly represents the composition of political affiliation among the state’s citizens, and elections are reasonably competitive in areas with mixed support”. Currently, there is no question that the Republican Party has a significant structural advantage in Congress due to the gerrymandered district boundaries in states they controlled after the 2010 census. Moreover, most congressional districts are extremely safe for one party or the other, encouraging candidates to run for office on radicalized anti-compromise platforms. My personal preference would be to see districts drawn in a neutral way.

The green states in this picture use an independent commission to draw districts, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Redistri... It would be nice if more of the yellow states (redistricting controlled by the legislature) would switch to independent commissions.

I think there's no such thing as an independent commission. I'd rather it be part of the political process but improve the checks and balances somehow. Not sure what that looks like. Maybe explore special referendums or require more involvement from another branch of the government.

It's also worth pointing out that the courts have actually mandated gerrymandering at times to promote majority minority districts... which actually help create supermajority caucasian districts. We would need to stop this kind of gerrymandering or somehow establish the bright line between 'beneficial' (scare quotes for skepticism, not sarcasm) gerrymandering and corrupt gerrymandering.

Think of a startup whose founders spent 70% of their time raising money, they would never get anything done.

That's a bad example. For even a relatively early stage startup, raising money is the actual job description for a typical startup CEO. They probably spend more than 70% of their time on it.

It doesn't invalidate your point at all, however. Lawmakers are not startup CEO's. By providing every incentive to simply raise more money to ensure further employment, we've created just the worst possible system for functional government.

yeah like a five person team who's CEO spends 70% of time fundraising is probably fine. But an ENTIRE team that spends 70% of their time fundraising perpetually would be about as effective as Congress actually is.

Congresspeople have staffers who do not fundraise.

"The MRA for each Representative is calculated based on three components, including personnel, which is the same for each Member ($944,671 for each Member in 2014)"

"Each Member may use the MRA to employ no more than 18 permanent employees, a level that has remained unchanged for nearly four decades. A Member may employ up to four additional [part-time] employees "[0]

So each congressman can hire 18 people for about a million dollars total, including both district and DC staff and not including himself. That's a good size startup. Congressmen who do spend a lot of time fundraising (not all of them -- hundreds in safe districts don't bother) are like the CEO of that office raising the money while staffers do the work at his direction.

[0]http://library.clerk.house.gov/reference-files/114_20150106_...

> Members of Congress spend 70% of their time raising money. They're not lawmakers, they're professional fundraisers.

> they would never get anything done

You will have a hard time convincing HN that what US needs are more laws, especially at a rate limited by time available to politicians for writing them!

Broadly speaking limits on campaign donations are fairly small (Max $5k) and average donation sums ($100-200) are extremely small. You will need anywhere from 2-8 million to run for Congress, about 25 million to run for Senate.

As an entrepreneur, what do you call it when you raise capital of several million from hundreds or thousands of investors? That's right, you call it revenue, and you call those investors your customers.

It's a weird model, but the US system makes a fundraising politician to personally talk to thousands and thousands of his constituents and reach out to 10-fold that figure to gauge interest. That has a significant positive side-effect of the politician being intimately familiar with their biggest concerns and often even smaller, local or personal problems that need fixing. After all, if you want to be a great salesman, you better know the customer very well.

The "limit" on campaign donations is a complete farce though. Let's look at Jeb Bush. Jeb stated multiple times that he wasn't running for president in 2016, and instead started a Super PAC that let him raise uncapped campaign donations, and ultimately raised over $100 million. Then he announces that he had a change of heart, was indeed going to run for president, and gave control of his Super PAC to a friend of his. And now he has $100 million to play with, fuck that $5k limit, and the voters/peasants who would donate it.

Yes, SuperPACs and presidential races are another beast altogether. Like I said, I was talking about a general case, since you referred to legislators, which by definition excludes presidential candidates.

SuperPACs are difficult to play the devil's advocate for. They are a feature of running a widespread democratic campaign in a big country, where the ad impressions on voters are prohibitively expensive because of said voters purchasing power.

SuperPACs have very lax limits on contribution, but they need to be firewalled from the main campaign and cannot coordinate spending, and their power to target their spending is very limited. As far as I can tell, this firewall is as good as any such structure required by law and audited (e.g. finance, consulting, etc.). That is to say, it works okay, but not great.

Full disclosure, I am involved in campaigning professionally (not US) and was an independent OSCE observer of the 2012 presidential elections in the US when working for my country's parliament.

> SuperPACs are difficult to play the devil's advocate for.

I'll take a shot. They could be megaphones for oligarchs, sure. But they can also be fledgling political parties. Or at least non-governmental counter-movements within a party. I mean, that's basically what Lessig has been doing, right?

The $5k limit is irrelevant. PACs can funnel an unlimited amount of money into campaigns as long as they are "independent". Besides, average Joe certainly does not even have $5k to spend on a campaign, so yea if it were true that the $5k limit is relevant then the politician would have to reach out to thousands of rich people. But even that isn't true.

The government should issue everyone $5k to spend on politics (and only politics), then it would be democratic.

That's just voting

Congratulations, you've invented Larry Lessig's idea. He noted that $50 per voter would be enough to swamp the contributions from the billionaires.

There is no requirement in the US that your donors are your constituents. Amass sufficiently many people to whom the maximum contribution is a trivial sum of money, and donate to every campaign. Done.

Any other election he'd have been right. This time there's Bernie Sanders, who is pretty much the first presidential candidate to support common sense laws.

He raises money from lots of small donors with interests like you and me rather than a few big donors with interests diametrically opposed to you and me.

As awesome as Sanders is, I also happen to agree with Lessig in that campaign finance reform needs to take priority over every other issue.

Sanders is fighting for the right issues, but without campaign finance reform, every issue worth fighting for is going to face an almost impossible uphill battle.

Sanders' self-claimed biggest issue is climate change, which in my opinion trumps campaign finance reform.

I think the point is, until there's funding reform, climate reform doesn't stand much of a chance. Similarly, once the funding reform is done, climate reform will get promoted.

The problem is, everyone has his personal list of priorities topped by "something without which everything else does not make sense".

* campaign reform: "how can you discuss anything when your counterpart is crooked?"

* climate change: "how can you discuss anything if your house is underwater?"

* fracking: "how can you discuss anything when people are causing earthquakes?"

* poverty: "how can you discuss anything when people are dying of hunger?"

* etc etc

One should be humble enough to support the candidate that is the closest to one's personal pet argument, but who also has a chance to actually get elected. Lessig has no chance whatsoever, simple as. He wants hard to be a Nader but clearly lacks even the moderate mainstream popularity Nader had.

The Democratic nomination has basically always been guaranteed for Clinton. Sanders, though I certainly prefer him over her, is basically a sideshow to make it look like the Democrats actually support liberal issues and aren't just a moderate deviation from the one-party system. If they didn't run anyone besides Clinton many people would consider supporting a third party or independent candidate, but having Sanders around keeps them identifying with the DNC until he finally gives up the campaign and endorses Clinton.

Support for people who aren't likely to win the general election at least shows what issues are important to voters, forcing them to give some concessions to those issues in order not to lose their base to third parties and independents. That's the real power of supporting people like Lessig and Sanders, even though they clearly won't win. Supporting someone you disagree with more just because they're likely to win is truly "throwing your vote away" - it's working against your own policy preferences to give more votes to someone who doesn't even need them.

> The Democratic nomination has basically always been guaranteed for Clinton.

That may or may not be, but second candidate with good numbers would have strong chances of getting a VP berth (for himself or a protégé). I don't see it as a conspiracy.

> Support for people who aren't likely to win the general election at least shows what issues are important to voters

Undoubtedly, but I think what Lessig is proving is that voters don't give a rat's ass about his issues. By continuing on this road I fear he's doing more harm than good to his cause. Even Nader's bid, which was much more realistic than Lessig's, did more harm than good to his movement in the long run.

> Supporting someone you disagree with more just because they're likely to win is truly "throwing your vote away"

The hard truth of First-Past-The-Post systems is that purism doesn't pay. A slightly-shaky alliance taking you to 40% trumps a purist core of 10% every day. That is an objective fact. It sucks, but you can't wish it away.

> The hard truth of First-Past-The-Post systems is that purism doesn't pay. A slightly-shaky alliance taking you to 40% trumps a purist core of 10% every day.

Disagree. What matters in the end are the policies, not the person. In Lessig's case, he wants campaign finance reform. If whoever gets elected takes that up as part of their platform, and does their best to implement it as president, then he's won. If he gets them to take up a diluted version of it, he's still partially won.

Sending the message that you'll only support candidates if they align with your biggest policy issues is effective. Electing candidates who don't support your big policy issues is not.

(Edit: The part about voters not caring about his issues may be valid. From TFA he seems to think otherwise, but I wouldn't be surprised if in fact mainstream voters are completely apathetic towards campaign finance reform.)

American politics is pretty broken but it's not so broken that nothing is achievable without campaign finance reform.

Sanders also wants to reform campaign finance.

Lessig should throw his weight behind Sanders if he wants to have an actual impact.

As it is, if he takes even a few votes away from Sanders he could end up giving away the primaries to, well, Clinton, who isn't going to do anything about campaign finance.

Progressives need to learn that being divided with people who basically agree with them is how they lose elections.

Fun fact! Contra Lessig's plan to resign after magically gaining support for campaign finance reform from the two other branches of government, Presidents can do more than one thing per term! That means it is possible for a President Sanders to take action on both climate change and campaign finance reform, assuming the other two branches of government are amenable.

Amazing but true!

Obama came into office with the same idea, then expended pretty much all of his political capital on passing the ACA. Lessig's plan seems to be on the same order.

>Obama came into office with the same idea

Obama's ideas were never made very clear during his campaign. It was all "hope" and "change" and not a whole lot on policy specifics.

He then went and implemented the same neoliberal bullshit that George Bush pushed with a slightly different flavor.

And that's a big part of what makes me continue to support Lessig over Sanders. Remembering how great Obama sounded in 2008, and seeing how that turned out, I give it a very high chance Sanders would be exactly the same.

Now we have a Nobel peace price winning president who regularly orders extrajudicial assassinations and prosecutes anyone blowing the whistle on the runaway national security/military-industrial complexes. So much for "the most transparent administration in history," the guy who was going to close Gitmo and stop the serial wars all across the Middle East.

>And that's a big part of what makes me continue to support Lessig over Sanders. Remembering how great Obama sounded in 2008, and seeing how that turned out, I give it a very high chance Sanders would be exactly the same.

They're not the same at all. Sanders has a long history in Congress. Obama was a junior first term senator. Sanders is very specific about what he'll do. Obama was deliberately vague.

Indeed. Look how Obama moved from a strong and repeated "if you like your guns, you can keep your guns", and previously as a Senator even voted for the bill putting heavy, direct penalties on Katrina style mass confiscations, to this month calling for ... mass nationwide confiscations of all handguns and semi-auto long guns, which Hillary! echoed in the debate.

Not sure if Sanders has changed here, he's not as viciously anti-gun, he's changed his language recently but, not, based on what I was just able to dig up, his real positions.

> Members of Congress spend 70% of their time raising money.

Why do they do this? Because the politicians who spend the most money on advertising generally win the elections, right? I'm wondering if what we're seeing here is the failure of democracy with universal suffrage. Most of the voters don't seem to be independent thinkers. They could have voted for politicians who haven't been "bought". But they don't. For example, there are other political parties out there - Green Party, Libertarian Party etc., but almost nobody votes for those.

This is more a problem with vote distribution.

The parties outside the main two cannot win because they're always going to be a minority. If a minority could still hold a minority of the seats for getting a minority of the votes, the landscape would be vastly different.

Instead, we have an average vote system based on geographic region that can only allow for major parties to hold seats.

This is not the case in all democracies - most european parliaments have more than two parties because of the difference in the way minority votes are handled.

This is a failure of US-flavor representative democracy.

I suppose you have a valid point. I have one question, though: aren't political TV ads actually illegal in most European countries?

At least I never seen anything like what Jon Stewart showed. There are political TV ads during the official campaigns, but that's two weeks before the elections and it's just 1h where the ads run all in a big block.

European political campaigns are usually cheaper than US ones, but they're by no means cheap in absolute terms. We have corruption scandals here too... before '92, a lot of political parties were almost entirely funded by either the US or the USSR; they've been economically struggling ever since.

We have Party Political Broadcasts in the UK, which are scheduled and appear in tv listings one party at a time. They are usually after the news, but not always, and regular programmes are shifted by 5-10 minutes to accommodate them.

A big part of the problem is voter turnout.

If you make voting a requirement, like paying your taxes. It changes the environment around an election. You spend less time and money trying to convince apathetic voters to take time out of their work day to vote.

Voting hardly matters when there are two parties available representing largely the same company and pac interests.

I know this is unpopular to say, but if you'd like to make a difference in governance, you have to pay for it.

You have the right to vote, not the obligation to vote. The latter is a clear coercive practice and free speech violation. It forces the uninformed to cast votes on issues they have no background in. It also criminalizes the legitimate protest activity of abstention.

Isn't voting a requirement in Argentina? Look at the politicians they're electing...

But we have primaries, where we get to choose who those candidates will be. It makes sense to winnow down choices from a larger group until you get to the top 2, and then choose between the top two. You still have lots of choices if you look at the process from the beginning, not just from the very last part of the selection process.

Appointing electors is universally FPTP in the United States, sans a couple of states. Do primaries use a Condorcet method, or...?

Well, I'm saying that general elections in the US tend to be functionally the equivalent of run-off elections in many other places. For instance, in France you generally have candidates that weren't in a competitive primary run in an election, then have a runoff with the top two candidates (the Socialists seem to be introducing primaries for presidential candidates though). So you have an election, then the top two candidates compete in another FPTP election. In the US we have a (primary) election, then the top two candidates from each side (except for in places like California) compete in a FPTP election.

In the US, this differs state by state (California has their jungle primary system, some cities have IRV) and in Europe country by country and party by party (as I mentioned, the French socialists seem interested in have presidential primaries).

Lack of independent thinking may indeed be a problem, but the reason for a two-party system is mostly due to the mechanics of our plurality voting system [1]. People don't vote for third parties because voting for the lesser evil with the best shot to win produces a better outcome than voting for true preferences that are likely to lose.

This problem of plurality mechanics could be largely addressed by instant runoff voting [2], which allows people to vote for their true preferences without fear of throwing their vote away. Of course the people in power don't want to make it harder to retain power, so getting something like this implemented is very difficult without a referendum.

This is just my speculation, but it seems that a two-party system removes most of the incentive for pursuing nuanced, independent thought. The depth of the decision you have to make is choosing one team or the other, and defaulting to their stances on most issues, or by a mix of resignation and cognitive dissonance, ignoring the areas of disagreement. And once you've made the decision for which team to be on (or inherited from your parents), it's usually set-it-and-forget-it.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Pretty much this. In this day and age, it's easy for people to ignore the advertising and simply search online for the candidates positions, their history, which groups support them, etc. This probably takes less than an hour.

Granted, most people don't, and most people probably don't even know the names of the people running besides those in the biggest races (they might know the presidential or mayoral candidates, but they often don't know the state senate or state party candidates).

I disagree about third parties though - it usually makes much more sense to try to make changes during the primary, then trying to make them with a third party (there are a few exceptions, of course).

People don't vote for those parties not because they aren't independent thinkers, but because they don't want what those parties are selling. They don't want some libertarian wonderland without consumer protection laws or Social Security. In broad strokes, they want what we already have, with small tweaks.

> This is why common sense laws that have majority support from the voters (gun control, marijuana legalization etc...) never get the traction they should. The funders don't want them, and they have the final say, not the voters.

The idea that most politicians are just empty shells that do whatever their funders tell them is just wrong. The truth is that it's cheaper and much more effective for funders to give money to politicians that already support their positions.

Lessig believes that if big money is taken out of politics that politicians will suddenly vote for fixing climate change, pass gun control, etc. But they wont because the ones that are against these things aren't against them because they are told to be, they are against them because they genuinely believe that they are bad policies. It's ideology, not money, that drives them.

His political ideas have little traction because they're fallacious? I'm pretty sure that already counts as a rare achievement.

Ok, even if this was the case, I fail to see the relevance of it?

The effect would be the same. Less money for candidates that vote against fixing the climate. Hence less chances for them winning in the elections.

"I haven’t tried to engage with the political system before"

Now that's just inaccurate, unless you mean merely that he's never run for office. He has engaged with the political system on numerous fronts over the span of a couple of decades, sometimes effectively, sometimes not. He's made real positive change in the world (possibly as much as anyone else running, if we're being honest), occasionally through political means.

But, more importantly, I genuinely trust him to do what he says. Which is definitely more than can be said of the vast majority of people vying for the title on either side of the fence (the entirety of GOP field is particularly villainous this year, but the current leader for the DNC isn't exactly a pillar of virtue).

But, you're right that he is running a losing race. Several commentators on the first debate said they would have preferred to see Lessig on the stage, and perhaps if that would have happened, things would look different. I don't know. That said, I think you're missing the point of why he's so thoroughly unlikely to even get fair treatment by the DNC, much less taken seriously as a candidate. Despite his impressive fundraising for a "nobody" in politics, and despite being clearly smarter and more broadly competent than some of the other DNC candidates, his desire to tear down the very system that feeds the DNC (and the GOP) virtually guarantees he will never be taken seriously.

A reform candidate in a thoroughly corrupt system stands no chance. Short of pitchforks and the guillotine, our system likely won't be reformed.

He’s been a lawyer arguing cases and filing amicus briefs w/r/t copyright law and net neutrality, and he’s been an issue-specific activist/lobbyist on those two issues plus, more recently, campaign finance reform. He’s also given a TED talk and written a book outlining zany, politically impossible proposals for tackling the latter issue, and he ran a failed single-issue PAC in 2014.

But that’s a very limited kind of engagement with the overall political system.

If you want to become president, you need to build a broad base of support, which means spending many years organizing, becoming versed in salient political issues, directly working on a wide range of issues with a wide range of other people, leaving a public record and earning credibility. You won’t be able to build a large grass-roots organization, earn endorsements from major institutional political players, build a donor base, etc. on pure message alone. The easiest way to meaningfully engage in a public way is by being elected to political office, but there are probably other possible ways for someone willing to put the years of work in (e.g. as a high-level executive department official, as a career judge, as a military general, ...).

Right now Lessig’s only reputation is as “that guy who doesn’t like copyright, and keeps grandstanding about campaign finance”, but he has no broader credibility as a presidential candidate. Lessig is not “smarter” or “more competent” than the leading candidates; rather, it’s clear that he’s politically naïve in the extreme, has no idea how to run a serious campaign, and would have no idea what to do were he by some miracle elected to high office.

Worse still, to the extent that a well-run Presidential campaign is an audition for the office itself, the one significant managerial task he's taken on so far (organizing and running the PAC) he failed at, and had to hand the reins to someone else.

"running in a primary with a bunch of weak other candidates"

^ I think your political bias is showing through.

In my opinion this is one of the strongest sets of candidates for the Republican primary in a long time. And I am far from alone in that assessment.

Yes there are some weak candidates (there are always weak candidates in both parties), but it is far from "a bunch".

People always say they don't like "Politicians" but politicians get things done. People who know how to make deals and bargains.

> That works if you’re a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump

Ben Carson is #2 though. But that's probably also due to the "weak"* candidates.

* I think you mean relatively unknown compared to a former first lady.

Both Trump and Carson are willing to move the Overton Window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window) ... although I suppose it's telling that not being willing to do that is a defining characteristic of most if not all of those other candidates. The Republican base is beyond hungry for this, and for that matter playing by the other side's rules is a tried and true way to lose.

I registered just to reply to your comment.

I live in Europe, and from here, your comments sounds like the grumblings of someone born and raised in some far shore of the USA where creationism is still taught at school and who genuinely believes that more guns are required to prevent mass shootings.

> have no budget, no endorsements, a tiny donor base, no institutional support from the Democratic party, no grass-roots campaign organization

That's the very reason why the American system is fucked up : you shouldn't get a chance to get elected for the sole reason that you have any of these.

And I'm not pretending that European models are perfect, far from that. They are just less fucked up - North American elections look like a joke from here, almost as much as South African "democracies"/North Koea where they are president from father to son and get elected with scores approaching 90%. The only downside to the joke is that USA are far more powerful than NK.

> a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump

Outside of the US, nobody knows who he is.

I'm 27, engineer, speak four languages and have traveled around Europe, North Africa, "Middle-East", and South Asia.

The only things that I knew about him prior to the 2016 presidential campaign were that he is an eccentric billionaire and has/had alleged bounds to the mafia (and the only reason why I knew that is because I care about national North American politics - which most of the non-USA residents don't give a shit about). Since then, the only time he is referred to in the European media is to underline the stupidity of his statements/behavior.

On the other hand, I've learned about Lessig during highschool : his legal challenges ; his role at Harvard, Yale and Standford ; his role in the creation of Create Commons, etc. He is seen as a dedicated, brilliant, man who tries and tackles tough issues. Every educated person knows or at least have heard about Lessig and/or Creative Commons.

Lessig is just as electable as anyone out there, but I am not sure he is much of a strategic thinker. He just gave up the one thing that made his #hackthepresidency style campaign interesting.

At this point & with the right campaign you could run a rump roast for the presidency and it'd have a decent shot at grabbing a signficant share of the vote.

I could name way more but Lessig top problems imo are:

He lacks conviction. That rump roast is more red blooded than he is. If you are running for president, you can't just expect to win based on having a few good ideas. You need forcefulness. Someone says you can't attend a debate? You don't kick back and watch it on tv. You show up anyway and have your supporters provoke a riot when they don't let you in. Hopefully the media makes a field day out of it. Arrested? Even better. It fits in with your narrative.

Lessig's next big problem is - He needs an angle. Lessig seems to be too principled to participate in the usual games that gets people to the oval. That puts him at a big disadvantage. If he doesn't like how the sausage is made, he needs a strategy or SOMETHING to compensate for the power the machine gives you. Trump is a natural showman. Rubio is handsome, Ben Carson is a religious nut. Each of these guys is in the race, but Lessig isn't. Until Lessig finds something that gives him some oomph, he might as well just curl up into a fetal.

I realize I'll probably get downvoted in this thread for saying this, but allowing more money into politics is actually giving people more choice in elections, and Lessig is becoming a victim of the problems with the system before Citizens United. Between both parties, we have over 20 people running for President. We have more choice than ever. Why? Because these individuals can afford to do so, and don't need to rely on getting mainstream media attention to find donors they need to finance their campaign. Lessig, on the other hand, is running a campaign to fix campaign finance, and is running into issues with what hobbled the system before - media gatekeepers who aren't giving his campaign any attention. Yes, I understand that allowing the free flow of money into politics favors the wealthy, but at least now there is some sort of counterbalancing force to the media basically deciding who becomes our President. I don't know what would be a true democratic equalizer (maybe eliminating political parties), but Lessig's way of doing things had more problems than many want to acknowledge.

I disagree. Do you want "more choices" that are paid and pre-selected by the same 200 richest families? Or do you want actual choices supported by the People, who get their money not from few large donations, but from many small ones.

In the latter's case, you can have serious campaign finance reform, without restricting your real choices. What we want is for the money "vote" to be an equalizer just like the regular vote. If 200 families can pick a "winner", despite millions of other people actually wanting someone else to win, then something is seriously wrong with that democracy, and the money vote is way too skewed in favor of a few.

Your reply is completely nonresponsive to bsbechtel's point.

The point, stated more explicitly. There is a relatively small overton window permitted by the media - this is essentially what Chomsky would call "flak machines" and Moldbug would call the "cathedral". The "People", as you call them, will simply support whoever the media chooses to anoint. This set of candidates will basically be nothing but a few left wing Republicans and establishment Democrats (think Bush/Romney/Hillary) and we'll get more of the same.

In contrast, the richest 200 families are far less monolithic than the media. Money actually makes it possible for choices that the media establishment dislikes to get real traction. For example, Ross Perot or Donald Trump. If the People like such a candidate, they can then vote for that candidate.

tl;dr; The media has network effects which enforce a narrow overton window. In contrast, one eccentric rich guy can - if he chooses to spend lots of money - break through that and get other ideas out there.

Oh how quickly we forget. The 20 candidates between the two major parties isn't actually significant. I decided to check out the primaries from the U.S. Presidential elections since and including 1980 to see how many mayor candidates were fielded in each of the parties' primaries.

Which 20 (or 22 if you count the time when Scott Walker and Rick Perry was still running, which is only fair), then yes, 2016 is in the upper bracket, but not an outlier. Both 2008 and 1988 had 22 candidates running for president.

Here is a handy list:

    2012: Democrats: 1,  Republicans: 13. (Total: 14.)
    2008: Democrats: 10, Republicans: 12. (Total: 22.)
    2004: Democrats: 11, Republicans: 1.  (Total: 12.)
    2000: Democrats: 2,  Republicans: 13. (Total: 15.)
    1996: Democrats: 3,  Republicans: 10. (Total: 13 + 1.)
    1992: Democrats: 8,  Republicans: 7.  (Total: 15 + 1.)
    1988: Democrats: 13, Republicans: 9.  (Total: 22.)
    1984: Democrats: 8,  Republicans: 2.  (Total: 10.)
    1980: Democrats: 4,  Republicans: 10. (Total: 14 + 1.)

The reason there are 15 candidates on the Republican side has little to do with Citizens United and unlimited money in politics, but rather because the Republican Party is in disarray lacking an ability to field a strong candidate.

The Democrats, on the other hand, have a pretty strong hand with Hillary Clinton.

The 2008 book The Party Decides pretty much runs down how the primaries are mostly a show, and it's really the party leadership that decides who gets to be the nominee. No presidential candidate since and including 1980 have become their parties' nominee without endorsement from the party leadership.

Additionally, you are not getting more choice. Unless you live in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina. If you live elsewhere, the primaries are likely to have been decided, so your vote will have little meaning. And by the time you get to the general election, you will - as in any U.S. presidential election - have two choices.

Money are not creating all these candidates, chaos is. And either way, you are not getting more choice.

A better solution to your problem might be encouraging third parties by abolishing your First past the Post system. Switch to party-list proportional representation in Congress and have the popular vote decide the presidential election.

Actually, I don't know what an election, without money, would look like. The rich have been telling the poor/middle class what's good for them forever? Or capitalizing on fears/ignorance of the average voter; to get their guy in?

"Between both parties, we have over 20 people running for President."

That really isn't a lot of people considering our population size? The allowance of large swaths of money just widens the pool of Wackadoodles we are forced to pick from. Yea, the candidates eventually show off too many warts, and we are stuck voting for a person who seems slightly better than the other guy?

With money, we sit back and are spoon fed these candidates.

Without money, I wonder if we would really take these elections/candidates seriously? Would their be popular websites devoted just to candidates? Would we be up late debating one candidate, over the next? Or would be at some fun website? Probally the fun website? Maybe we haven't had it bad enough to really care?

I just don't know.

I look at it this way; would medical researchers be a lot father along curing real illnesses, and diseases if drug companies weren't allowed to advertise to the idiots?

I believe--yes. These drug companies would be forced to look beyond the quick dollar curing a limp weenie, baldness, or pimping a happy pill that's slightly better than placebo in bad studies.

Without advertising Doctors(trained, educated people in alleviating serious disease) would be calling the shots. Trained doctors would be telling researchers what their patients need, not the other way around?

Maybe this is not the best analogy? I really don't have an answer.

I just don't feel money and politics need to go together.

We got luckey with Obama, but that was a fluke. (yea, I know a lot of you don't like the man, but I feel like he tried. He originally tries to do the right thing, but is/was derailed by politicians controlled by big money. His original health care bill was great, until the Rebublicans got their hands on it. He was forced to change it, or we wouldn't have anything.)

Bye-I'll try to get some sleep. Or, wish I could sleep well.

Yes, letting the media decide was a problem. But is letting the ultra-wealthy decide any less of a problem?

The point is to maximize the avenues for differing points of view to be heard. Some are heard through traditional news media platforms like TV and newspapers. But now others can quickly construct their own platforms (which are expensive) to directly compete with the news media.

Ultimately it is the voters who decide. No matter how much money a billionaire puts into ads, when he or she goes to vote, their vote counts as much as mine. A greater diversity of platforms and opinions simply feeds more information to more voters. I don't see how that is a bad thing for democracy.

> This change now sharpens the difference between our campaign and the others. Now the strongest contrast in substance is the priority that I give to democratic reform. This difference should then press an obvious question for every other candidate: How do you expect to achieve what you are promising without this reform? And if you believe this reform is necessary, then why isn’t it your first priority?

But in all these words he never gets around to explaining how as President he would actually make the reform happen, other than saying it'd be his "first priority" and (twice) that he would "work with Congress."

Oh, is that all it's going to take to completely upend the deeply entrenched systemic power of elites who are richer than Croesus, Larry? We just need a President who wants it bad enough, and is willing to ask Congress for it nicely? Huh.

I bet Barack Obama wishes he'd thought of that. All this time he could have just gone down to Capitol Hill, clicked his heels three times and made the Koch brothers disappear! Who knew?

Lessig is such a paradox to me. His heart's in the right place, he's clearly earnest, and he's managed to accomplish some remarkable things, like Creative Commons. But every time he wades into electoral politics he does so in ways that are so desperately naïve that they'd be funny, if the stakes weren't so high. It's Mr. Bean Goes To Washington.

"But every time he wades into electoral politics he does so in ways that are so desperately naïve that they'd be funny, if the stakes weren't so high."

Same was said about a big-eared Senator from Chicago with a funny name, that gave a good political speech in 2004.

Lessig is trying to find a mix between himself, the platform, and the process. You need to be naive if you ever hope to solve any seemingly intractable problem.

Obama was a career politician with lots of support and credibility, a best-selling author, and a charismatic speaker, with an absolutely incredible campaign organization. He was running on an anti-war platform during a highly unpopular war.

Lessig doesn’t have any of those things.

Obama released his first book to coincide with his first political campaign. And his second book 1 years prior to announcing his run for president.

Lessig is a reasonably charismatic speaker.

The rest I agree, Lessig is no Obama.

Look, I don't expect Lessig to make much of a dent in 2016. I wouldn't say he'll never make a dent. The only way TO make a dent is to naively keep trying, and learning, and being willing to look dumb in the process.

"Same was said about a big-eared Senator from Chicago with a funny name, that gave a good political speech in 2004."

Totally different situation. People recognized Obama's potential as a politician, even if they didn't agree with him. They only doubted how far he would go in that period of time.

> But in all these words he never gets around to explaining how as President he would actually make the reform happen, other than saying it'd be his "first priority" and (twice) that he would "work with Congress."

That's about as exact as any politician gets on the campaign trail. They say no plan survives enemy contact? I'd include that no path to achieving a campaign promise survives the election. By swear-in time, a large chunk of congress is brand new and it's an entirely different game of chess when you actually get in there.

> Lessig is such a paradox to me. His heart's in the right place, he's clearly earnest, and he's managed to accomplish some remarkable things, like Creative Commons. But every time he wades into electoral politics he does so in ways that are so desperately naïve that they'd be funny, if the stakes weren't so high. It's Mr. Bean Goes To Washington.

If running a country was based solely on the ability to understand complex problems and provide novel solutions, I'd say Lessig is a top candidate among US citizens to run our country. But unfortunately, before any of that gets to happen, someone needs to get elected. And you must first play The Game before you can get a crack at getting something positive done. And therein lies the problem. How can one play the a game that runs counter to the fiber of their being? Yes he's running, but he is not playing The Game.

Observations from Australia:

* Lessig is trying to reform US politics with minimal grassroots support and from the outside. That's pretty much impossible, even without the sort of broken system he's trying to reform.

* Bernie Sanders seems to be offering similar reforms, though not as a No.1 priority. Lessig is essentially arguing that he'll implement one Sanders policy as a priority, and then get out of the way - that sounds completely silly to me, and I don't see why you wouldn't just vote Sanders instead.

* I'd contend that the problems in US politics run much deeper than campaign finance - voting systems, the structure of government, separation of powers, etc all need a thorough look and possible overhaul. Any campaign finance reform would probably end up being disappointingly ineffective compared to how it's being sold.

Lessig is not thinking this through. If he wants to be taken seriously as a candidate he's going to need to address every single issue the others have. By the time he's done that, his message will be diluted and sidetracked, and he'll have groups of people who may support him on the corruption issue but disagree on other issues, e.g., how to handle Syria.

At this point he kind of reminds me of Donald Trump who also has not taken time to formulate many policy positions but just wants to the voters to trust him it'll all be great.

Additionally, a big part of being President is just the relentless work at championing your causes and causing your opponents to fail if they refuse to compromise. Lessig seems allergic to this type of work, politics, and campaigning in general. I don't know how he expects to get his legislation passed.

Even on the issue of corruption, I'm not sure he's effectively explained his solution. He's just laid out legislation to pass, but hasn't detailed how he'll get Congress to pass it without amendments that destroy it, how he'll keep the Supreme Court from eviscerating it, and how the rules could withstand attempts to game them.

He's just laid out legislation to pass

Errr, as far as I know he hasn't entirely done that. From his web site, https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/ he has two specific "Equal Right to Vote" laws plus "In addition, we will enact automatic voter registration and turn election day into a national holiday." Then there's a Ranked Choice Voting item with specific language, but the third item is not specific, and as other discussions here have noted, here the devil is in the details:

CITIZEN FUNDED ELECTIONS

All citizens deserve an equal ability to choose our leaders.

The Citizen Equality Act will end pay-to-play politics by changing the way we fund campaigns by taking the best of Rep. Sarbanes’ Government by the People Act, and Represent.US’s “American Anti-Corruption Act.” That hybrid would give every voter a voucher to contribute to fund congressional and presidential campaigns; it would provide matching funds for small-dollar contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns. And it would add effective new limits to restrict the revolving door between government service and work as a lobbyist.

It'll be interesting to hear his foreign policy. He's probably the smartest guy running, and the least corrupt. That said, I'd have a hard time voting for someone whose only official job is to be the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and whose only platform is to be a placeholder representing the concept of reform. I want to know how he's gonna handle {the Middle East, Russia, etc.}.

Does it matter how he'd handle those other issues if he gets his reform done? You seem to be saying that continuity in handling those issues in a way you like is more important than the reform he's proposing. Wouldn't it be worth having a few years of "bad" foreign policy in exchange for a whole future of reform?

Yeah, it does. It's pretty damned important to trust that the Commander-in-Chief would be a competent leader of the armed forces. How would he respond to an act of war? What would he do to stabilize the Middle East and neutralize ISIS?

Of course every outsider wants reform. It's nice to see a smart person thinking creatively about how to achieve it. Still, you don't get to be Commander-in-Chief unless you can instill trust that you can handle being Commander-in-Chief.

Okay - but why Middle East and Russia need handling? With the shell gas boom US is on its way to energy independence.

Middle east is irreparable mess, the US president is not all powerful. Russia is big but regional power (for now). Europe should learn to take care of itself (Disclaimer - I am citizen of EU nation).

I love Lessig but speaking of mistakes, he should do a poll about his glasses.

Whether he switches to something more likable or not will be an indicator of how savvy he would be on the job.

I'm assuming half of your point is humour and the other is the fact you don't like his glasses.

It is on this second half I'd like to comment.

It shifts the focus on form rather than content. Sure form has its non-negligible role, but in politics and most domains it should never take precedence over content, the actual message itself. And here lies one part of the problem Lessig is trying to go after: the corruption of our mind in its ability to be seduced by form at the expense of content. It is that kind of corruption that makes it possible for movie actors without real political substance to become president. It is that kind of corruption that makes the present political system a democratic farce.

If we want him to succeed we have to do our part too, and it's precisely because we haven't for ages, that we have such situation today. Even if he succeeds and changes the rules of the political game, if we the people also don't change the way we think, then this can start all over again in 4 years without us even realizing.

So maybe he could do with another pair of glasses, but we the people also need another pair of glasses.

Deal?

Well you totally missed the point.

There's plenty of substance with Lessig. I just am talking about one bit of substance, which is whether he has the pragmatism needed to get and then to do the job or not.

The glasses (which I actually like; not sure where you got your "fact"... but I doubt US voters will) are the form here, to use your word. Not the substance. They are trivial.

So yes, the glasses are not substance. His lack of pragmatism in clinging to them is substance.

I feel sad because I'm probably Lessig's ideal target audience, but I don't like any of this. I don't like that he backed down so quickly from his first approach, because of the polls. Isn't that what corrupt politicians do? I don't like that he is so vague about what he's going to do to fix corruption - I get it that it's about taking money out of politics, but how do you get there, especially when Congress is seized up?

And I want to hear about other issues, too, if he's seriously running for president. What about local police corruption, violence, and abuse? What about drone assassinations? What about corporate welfare that socializes risk and privatizes rewards? What about poverty and basic income? What about simplifying the legal system so that justice isn't too expensive for most people? What about extra-legal punishment like no-fly lists? What about the goddamn NSA? What about the security theater at the airport we pay for and endure?

From the other candidates all we hear about is "the economy", mid-east terrorism and related problems, immigration, and now and again (against all odds) climate change. From Lessig you just hear about corruption. If you want to impress me as a real Presidential candidate, speak eloquently about the days when the US would never have even considered torturing someone for any reason; when 1984 was a cautionary tale about surveillance, not a manual on how to do it; when we needed to work together to defeat an enemy, we did it, or to achieve a great goal like the moon, we did it, and how we can do it again, but this time we're going to End Oil, worldwide. I want to hear about how we can use technology to make government at every level more accountable and more responsive, and I want to hear more about our aspirations. I want to hear that we will recover the first asteroid from the asteroid belt within 20 years. I want to hear that federal funding will be tied to the creation of independent police review panels in every major city. I want to hear that blanket surveillance will be made explicitly illegal.

But I don't hear hardly any of that, not even from Lessig. Which makes me sad.

Backing down from an approach that can't work sounds good to me. I wish politicians would do it more often.

Regarding hearing about other issues, near the end of the article:

> But beyond that priority, I would do everything else a president must do, too. Which means I bear the burden in this campaign of convincing America I could do that well. Like every other candidate, I will outline my position on the policies that I would press, once reform is achieved. In every relevant way, my campaign will be like every other campaign—except mine will place democracy first.

I suspect his positions will at least start out closer to something like an academic consensus than any other candidate, but am prepared to be disappointed.

I don't like that he is so vague about what he's going to do to fix corruption - I get it that it's about taking money out of politics, but how do you get there, especially when Congress is seized up?

If he were to be elected he would have a very strong mandate to fight for the reforms he proposes -- a strong enough mandate that Congress might be forced to adhere to it. If the people put Lessig in the Presidency it's pretty clear what the people want. A Democratic congressperson or senator who voted against such reforms would surely be risking his/her job. The same might even be said for TeaPartiers.

Regarding everything else... he claims most of it won't happen because the system is rigged. Most good causes like the ones you list could never command the singular and focused attention from the people it would take to defeat the powers that oppose them, even if the people generally would be in favor. We don't have a referendum system. That's his whole point -- to hack one in. I think it's still his point, he's just realizing that he has to play politics to do it.

> If he were to be elected he would have a very strong mandate to fight for the reforms he proposes -- a strong enough mandate that Congress might be forced to adhere to it... A Democratic congressperson or senator who voted against such reforms would surely be risking his/her job.

Note peoples' diverging approval ratings between Congress as a whole and their own Congresspersons. Each Congressperson could find a local reason to nitpick over, and thus vote against, a measure they and the country broadly support.

Did you actually watch the Democratic debate a few days ago? Because almost every issue you raise was discussed there. Climate change, torture, surveillance, accountability, police violence, as well as thing like education reform.

He's outlined a set of reforms in the 'Citizens Equality Act' and I believe he's started posting his policy papers on broader issues on his site.

I think Lessig should reinstate his promise to resign after passing the Citizen Equality Act, run as an independent, and pick a good conservative to be his running mate. The corruption of democracy by special interests is not only a Democratic issue. Hell, it's one of the Tea Party's Core Beliefs.

This would get him more attention, it would get some conservatives voting for him, and it would get some some progressives voting for him. As a progressive, I'd accept a term with a conservative president if it meant taking a huge step to fix the system as a whole.

I admire Mr. Lessig's convictions and his ideas, but frankly the concept of a self-resigning President is half-baked. It reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the role of the Presidency in United States politically and socially and image it projects to the world at large.

The United States isn't a startup. You can't have a Minimum Viable Presidency focused on a single issue.

> It reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the role of the Presidency in United States politically and socially and image it projects to the world at large.

Your comment is ironic to the core. The role of POTUS is not to serve the current system of contributors after the fact. That's the nature of the problem. The idea that POTUS is sancrosanct or even in a different class (projects to the world at large, lol) shows how far we have diverged from the concept of a public servant. POTUS is just a man and deserving little more than cursory protections and respect. The political system has been corrupted to make it a MONUMENTAL effort to get someone in the office. This does not make the station special. We have had real need for reform and this backward thinking that POTUS is elevated is part of the cultural shift that needs to occur to break the corruption cycle. It won't, of course. Partly because people are too stupid to break their own socialization (nobody will acknowledge it's so broken that anyone elected is unqualified, so you get lip service to "fight corruption") and partly because statistically, no large democracy has ever even accidentally broken the cycle before a catastrophic decline.

It's hardly ironic. It's realistic, and your defense is simplistic at best.

What does President Lessig do during the first 100 days of his Presidency if war breaks out? What if a natural disaster strikes putting millions of Americans at risk? We have no idea because his Presidency is not about governing towards a better future but rather tearing down a system he doesn't like.

Noble as his idea may sound on the surface it is a childish proposal which does not take into account the complexity of the system it intends to address.

> your defense is simplistic at best.

Defense of what?

> What does President Lessig do during the first 100 days of his Presidency if war breaks out?

He does what EVERY President does. 100 days or not (how are the # of days relevant? howabout 3! sounds a lot like political hand waving). What happens is surely that he makes a statement and the executive branch provides function. He's not a general, but he can make individual decisions just like any successor. His death or resignation doesn't cripple the country, as much as some might fantasize.

The complexity you are talking about is the same religious belief that portends that a POTUS is somehow holding the nation together. More irony, calling my characterization simplistic.

Do you actually believe that this is the way the world works?

Super curious if you do or if... https://xkcd.com/6/

Of course I do. The idea that a single individual directs (generally through a number of cabinet positions, notably Secretary of State) is how the US presidency worked under a number of administrations, most notably Bush Jr and Reagan. Jimmy Carter was a micromanager, by contrast. The physical process of running the US presidency does not come in an orientation, just a transition process (handoff of key information and items). POTUS function is a matter of philosophy and personal style in dealing with the bureaucracy. It's how the station really works, if you're interested in the reality.

Sure, just like any other high-level executive function which is basically my entire point.

If you ever find yourself in a position of executive authority, you'll realize pretty quick that direct action is usually a disaster in the making when dealing with internal matters. However, by using indirect methods through key designates, you can actually get quite a bit done even in the worst bureaucracies.

By contrast, direct action is often required when dealing with external issues. Executive heads tend to deal only with other executive heads. This is true in business, and doubly true in politics.

This notion that "outsiders" are what it takes to reform government is a popular campaign theme, but has never succeeded. The basis for justification is essentially one of "the system has made others corrupt, but not me" -- it's a play on principles rising above the temptation for personal gain in order to achieve reform. Aside from being untrue, we've actually seen how this plays out.

Many of the far-right members in the House of Representatives that identify with the Tea Party are also highly principled. Listen to their campaigns and you'll hear how they'll "fix Washington" and such. One may or may not agree with those principles, but many of those members are steadfast in their beliefs, and govern based on those beliefs.

And what has been accomplished? To quote Admiral Stockdale - Gridlock!

Reform will never happen with a single leader. It will take the right people in all levels of government to make it happen.

The way to create "equality" is via the libertarian movement. Get rid of the rules and social safety nets. Hell, let all the immigrants in! If we have a truly libertarian society, than it won't be a problem. Giving government the power to chose who is rich and who is poor is not going to create 'equality' (whatever that means), it's just going to give the government the ability to handicap the able and enable the disabled.

That being said, I don't believe 'equality' is what we need. What we need it is a society that rewards those who teach, learn and work for the good of the community with security and dignity.

Larry Lessig definitively has my vote.

It is just inconvenient, that I am not an US-American. But if he would run for election in my country, I would give him my vote.

The reason: He really takes democracy seriously -- some thing, that I would not attest to most people in our government -- and definitively not to the leading politicians of most political parties in my country.

That is the reason, I fear that democracy is bound to fail -- and to be replaced by corporate ruling (in fact, we are already at this point, where corporations have much more power than politicians or voters).

Lessig seems to be too in love with the idea to the point that he doesn't realize that the execution is what matters.

He would've been better off organizing people to get one or more of the legit Dem candidates to promise to work on this reform if elected.

This also assumes that the president has enough influence to get meaningful reform passed which isn't a reality with the current Congress.

> This change now sharpens the difference between our campaign and the others.

Not really. Now he's just yet another candidate who has an issue they talk about more than the others. For Trump, it's immigration. For Sanders, it's wealth inequality.

Except he's a fringe candidate talking about an abstract issue which most people don't actually care about that much.

Lessig should do something useful and realistic, instead of this grandstanding and pretending that he can go from zero-to-President in 2.4 seconds as if politics were some sort of Tesla. It's embarrassing.

To wit: he should run for the House, or Senate, or he should support candidates who are in favor of overturning Citizens United (i.e., Democrats).

Uh, the PAC he started does the candidate support, but he can't be associated with it while running as president.

Great. I agree with that, of course. And perhaps if he wasn't wasting millions of dollars of donor money on running for President, his PAC could do more good.

What if Lessig actually won? It wouldn't matter at all. You think the Republican Congress is going to pass sweeping campaign finance reform? Jesus Christ could return and be President and he wouldn't be able to make that happen, either. Lessig surely understands our system well enough to know this. So why is he doing this very expensive pretending that him being President will cause any change? If a Democrat in the White House could magically fix this, Obama would fix it right now.

What would he need congress for? Some people run just to change the conversation, not to win.

In fact, that's been a successful third party tactic in times past: get successful enough and one or the other major parties will absorb it and much of its platform.

Zephyr Teachout took over the PAC because Lessig's management of the PAC --- and the PAC itself --- was widely regarded as a total failure. That's not my opinion; it's the reporting on Mayday PAC.

Let's say that Larry Lessig succeeds. What would happen then? Would it be primarily journalists who would influence the government then, rather than corporations and rich people? Journalists tend to be left-leaning. The left is probably better on some issues, such as the environment, however, they aren't always so good for the economy and entrepreneurs. Personally, I'm really not sure whether the US would be a better or worse place without money in politics.

I think many agree with Lessig's policies. But I have serious doubts he wants to get money out of politics. If his voting history's any indication, he wants the money in politics to be from a wider range of the population.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/lessig-lawren...

> America gave birth to the idea of representative democracy

And here was me thinking that was the Greeks. Thousands of years before America existed.

I believe the Athenians practiced direct democracy rather than representative.

I first gained interest in Lessig when he offered a poll to vote for his vice president (who takes over when he steps down).

https://lessig2016.us/vote4vp/

I just love the idea of Neil deGrasse Tyson being president.

Thank you, Mr. Lessig.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10138724

I largely agree with Lessig's point about our campaign finance laws being the root of all evil, and I think he's spoken rather intelligently about this in the past. But I'm frankly amazed at how earnestly he speaks about his "discovery" that "elect me, an outsider, to fix Congress" polls so well.

I mean, this is not a novel talking point. Does it really take an expert pollster to tell you that people like this message?

Oh boy. Looks like he'll have to show he can be president to get his reform passed... and otherwise his campaign hit a wall, what a surprise. My response: http://magarshak.com/blog/

response to your response: it's a good idea but would there be margin of error? Would have to be. And how could you do a recount on close issues?

What makes more sense is to allow online voting (with appropriate safeguards) and then restructure the process so the votes actually mean something, i.e. break the two party system as a start.

Well, that's the Buridan's ass problem. You simply don't change course unless the majority is large enough. For example unless clearly over 80% of the country votes a certain way, you keep the status quo. If you are unsure, you keep the status quo.

In the Buridan's problem the solution is a timeout: if you haven't made a decision and can clearly see that the timeout has passed, you pick a certain predetermined decision (in this case the status quo).

Polling also prevents sybil attacks, ballot stuffing etc. and is impervious to voter turnouts.

Sounds super confusing

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