Lawrence Lessig, Mayday Superpac and Ending Big Money Corruption of Politics and Congress

Lawrence Lessig Mayday SuperPac

Lawrence Lessig co-founder of the Mayday Superpac, and is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and founder of Rootstrikers,, a network of activists leading the fight against government corruption. He has authored numerous books, including Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Our Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Free Culture, and Remix.

He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

Mayday PAC

https://mayday.us

Lessig Blog, V2

http://lessig.tumblr.com

Rough Interview Notes-- not meant to summarize-- only meant to entice you to listen to the podcast.

Rob: You say "Our congress is crippled by campaign cash and the cronies who supply, and we won't make progress on any important issue unless we change the way that campaigns are funded." Tell me about the Mayday Superpac.

two cycles

2014 run in a limited number of races to demonstrate that voters care about this issue and are willing to vote on the basis of this issue, and to learn what way to about this works best.

2016

Rob: You started off with Largest crowd funded campaign to change congress ever. Over $5 millionfrom over 50,000 donors.

Started out shooting to raise $1 million in a month-- achieved in 13 days.

Second goal- raised $5 and will get that matched.

will be in eight different races.

Picked Republican and democratic races

Iowa 3 congressional race-- Stacey Appel

Arizona Ruben Gallego Democratic primary

NH Senate primary-- Republican nominee--

Republican in NC Walter Jones

NH house race-- Carol Shea Porter

You've also talked about Zephyr Teachout, running for the gubernatorial race in NY against Cuomo" Is she one of the eight.

Rob: You've had some flack for supporting Republicans. Can you talk about that?

If you can't build cross- partisan support then we're stuck. We're not going to be able to pass legislation"

We get attacked by progressives who think it's too dangerous to support Republicans.

Rob: You say cross partisan when Bi-partisan is usually used. Why use Cross-partisan?

We're trying to create conditions in which democracy can function again" trying to focus on ways to get people of different values working together-- think of WWII CHurchill, Stalin and FDR working together.

Rob; if you're successful in 2014, what will that look like?

win some races on this issue, conventional thinking/wisdom that people don't care about this issue will be rejected.

Rob: experts' claim that Americans don't care about "process" issues, Can you go into that a bit more and why you think otherwise

Hibbings". book: Stealth Democracy

Americans care most about those kinds of issues.

People believe govt is corrupted.

They don't actually believe it's possible to change the system.

96% think it's important to reduce the influence of money in politics

91% don't think it's possible to reduce the money in politics.

Rob: You're fighting big money in politics, but you're taking big money, probably the matching funds. Can you talk about the contradiction?

It's not a contradiction. Men used an unjust system to pass the right for women to vote.

we're going to use the system as it is to produce the democracy we think ought to be.

Rob: This is what you describe as "the no unilateral disarmament principle?"

Rob: George Takei-- tweeted-- estimated to raise $750,000

How does Bottom-up vs top-down apply to your work

active vs passive culture

20th century was the age of perfecting the professional political campaign-- telling audience to shut up and listen to our ads.

21st century is encouraging many people to become active, using social media, that the campaign doesn't even pretend to control.

The change we're talking about really depends on the ability to rally people outside of the system.

Rob: read-write creativity? What's that?

the most interesting developments in culture are ones that allow that kind of read-write creativity.

Rob: are you also looking to a bottom-up approach to get your campaign to be successful

goal is to inspire production of social media material--- enable people to create their own ads for campaigns we're running.

curate on reddit

Will deploy ones that test well.

Rob: Is this something that's been done before?

two most prominent principles being

(1) that the project had to be cross-partisan, and

(2) the project would (ironically) use the very tools it hoped eventually to dismantle.

Rob: Let's talk about Jim Rubens, the only Republican candidate for Senate in the Nation to openly and honestly address the corruption in the way campaigns are funded-- running in NH against Scott Brown-- What were the stats when you started? Will you support him in the general election?

Rob: How will you measure moving the dial?

Rob: are you looking at just the polls, or also the conversation in the media?

Rob: do you have a strategy for that? (Getting the conversations.

Rob: Let's talk about Reuben Gallegos

First race, democratic primary in AZ-- won primary handily by 11 points.

Pretty clear that our issue was a primary issue in the race and that we'd elevated issue in the race.

Rob: when will you know the other three candidates you'll be supporting?

Rob: are you going to try to influence presidential candidates?

Rob: If everything is fabulously successful in 2016, what will it look like?

we will have won enough seats to make substantial reform.

Rob: What will that reform look like?

It will change the way campaigns are funded. Right now 1/20th of the one percent are the relevant funders.

voucher system or matching fund system-- either way many, many more people would be

Rob: What are the criticisms of your approach?

Many people believe we have to have constitutional change first. That misses what the problem is. The change we need is the change in the way elections are funded.

Rob: What about Citizens United and other supreme court decisions that seem to go against your goals.

More a way that Citizens United has been interpreted.

The Superpac is the most important change in the way entities are being funded--

Rob: You were involved in a constitutional change effort-- that's what we talked about in our last interview.

Article 5 convention

Critical issue is to get rid of superpacs

Rob: What about corporate personhood? Is that on your agenda at all?

Rob: What this affect initiatives and propositions like they vote on in California?

Rob: How can listeners and readers help?

easiest way is to go to Mayday.us

Rob: what benchmarks do you have in the coming months?

changing conventional wisdom on whether people care about this issue