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February 15, 2008

Facebook Group Wants to Draft Lessig For Congress

Erick Schonfeld

24 comments »

With the death of California Representative Tom Lantos on Monday, a special election will be held in April to fill his seat in Congress. Will Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig run? Already on Facebook, a “Draft Lessig for Congress” group has formed (with 554 members as of this posting). Lessig, who has long been a champion of Free Culture as a lecturer, intellectual property lawyer, and CEO of Creative Commons, has recently turned his attention to corruption. (He has a wiki about corruption here). In fact, his last lecture on Free Culture, which he has been giving for ten years, was on January 31.

What Lessig means by corruption is corruption of the political process:

That our government can’t understand basic facts when strong interests have an interest in its misunderstanding.

I don’t mean corruption in the simple sense of bribery. I mean “corruption” in the sense that the system is so queered by the influence of money . . .. Politicians are starved for the resources concentrated interests can provide. In the US, listening to money is the only way to secure reelection. And so an economy of influence bends public policy away from sense, always to dollars.

Lessig recently just registered Change-Congress.com. If he does decide to run, it should be interesting to see how he goes about raising his campaign funds. Tip jar, anyone?

lesssig-facebook.png

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Web 2.0 News & Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Complex Rhetoric

    February 16th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

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  1. leenkr.com

    February 15th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

    its interesting to think just how much change there will be as the tech savvy start taking office. we should have officials who understand how all of this works.

  2. Money

    February 15th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    “If he does decide to run, it should be interesting to see how he goes about raising his campaign funds”

    I think the natural direction, including Lessig’s interests in getting rid of corruption, necessitates serious campaign finance reform.. which would mean taking on all of the “special interests” who currently benefit and have fought for the current system.

  3. Andrew

    February 15th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

    this guy is too smart, so he won’t get elected.

  4. Mark Hendrickson

    February 15th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

    That’s quite a lot of apps you’ve got installed there, Erick.

  5. Jenkins

    February 15th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    Please, we don’t need more ultra liberal people in Washington, especially if Barack Obama wins. Watch your wallets if Obama wins. He’s going to taz many of us to death!

  6. Justin

    February 15th, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    I hate to sound like a Mac snob, but I don’t think you’ll find many mac users claiming that the inbox is flawed. I can sort & search my inbox by sender, recipient, subject, or ANY word found in ANY email. The results tabulate in realtime, and can be sorted by date, relevance, etc. I manage 5 email addresses this way, and the results can combine all those inboxes, or remain separate.

    I never delete any sent or received email (ever), and yet I haven’t noticed a dip in performance in the two years I’ve been using this machine. I have other 5,000 emails on hand.

    I don’t even need an address book. Just run a search for the company in Mail, and in literally about 2 seconds I have what I need…

  7. Justin

    February 15th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    aaaand I just realized I left this comment on the wrong post. Way to go, Justin. I should probably just pack it in for the day before I do any more harm ;)

  8. Andrew

    February 15th, 2008 at 3:32 pm

    Jenkins, I guess spending billions on an occupation that noone wants is better? McCain is the republican nominee, and he wants U.S. forces in Iraq for 100 more years. And wants to invade Iran. And wants to threaten Russia and China.

    There is no longer any conservatives left, you have liberal democrats and liberal republicans. Might as well go with the ones that at least want to balance the budget

  9. Jenkins

    February 15th, 2008 at 3:52 pm

    I’m looking for someone that occupies the sane middle, which is really where most people in the U.S. are with their politics. My problem with Obama is his view on taxes and investment, aside from the fact that I think his resume and credentials are quite thin. I can make a persuasive argrument that any entrepreneur that sells their company for $200M+ is more qualified than Obama to be president.

  10. Charlie Park

    February 15th, 2008 at 5:29 pm

    One of the sanest suggestions I’ve heard in a long time would put a version control on congressional bills. That way, every change would be logged, with a representative’s name attached to it. Sunshine like that would clear an incredible amount of pork out of legislation.

  11. Brian Zafron

    February 15th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

    Brian thinks Lessig has just enough revolutionary and just enough politician in him to make a bid for Capital Hill. But Brian also knows this: the current Facebook group doesn’t have the infrastructure to go viral. In order for these groups to truly work, they need to follow certain guidelines, which Brian writes about in a recent post: http://brianzafron.com/blog/20.....potential/

    Why the heck is Brian speaking in the 3rd person? He/I is/am very bored.

    BRIAN OUT BRIAN OUT

  12. Hornelius Bennett

    February 15th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

    Lessig is not a leader, he is a self promoting self righteous opportunist. He is not wise, he is foolish. He is corrupt. For proof, review his attacks against microsoft. He knowingly propogates lies in order to attain personal benefit. One thing is for sure, he would fit in well in Washington.

  13. nistor

    February 16th, 2008 at 1:20 am

    I love facebook
    http://www.i-guide.ro/blog/Ro/en/

  14. micfo.com

    February 16th, 2008 at 3:09 am

    It is very difficult to eliminate corruption from the root since it is interdependent and deeply infected to the system.

  15. Seth Finkelstein

    February 16th, 2008 at 5:09 am

    See my column which is something of a letter to Lessig on corruption

  16. del harris

    February 16th, 2008 at 9:51 am

    yawn.

    slow day at the office, eric?

  17. Ivan Drago

    February 16th, 2008 at 10:11 am

    Please stop wasting time covering politics and get back to startups. Thank you.

  18. Lauri Apple

    February 16th, 2008 at 7:47 pm

    I’d vote for him. I’d paint his portrait, too. Oh wait — I already did:

    http://flickr.com/photos/lauri.....443391148/

  19. iguide

    February 17th, 2008 at 11:28 am

    cool facebook
    http://www.i-guide.ro/blog/Ro/en/

  20. New Fast Browser

    February 17th, 2008 at 12:39 pm

    I was wondering..its been quite been some time, since we did not have a FB post on TC.

    Well not anymore.

    http://www.jhatak.com/Buckler/BucklerHomePage.htm

  21. Draft Lessig for Congress!

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

    Visit http://www.myspace.com/lawrencelessig and join our movement to draft Professor Lessig!

  22. dan

    February 17th, 2008 at 4:28 pm

    @Andrew I don’t think Lessig is very smart. I have his book - THE FUTURE OF IDEAS - I’m not too impressed. His inept argumentation to the Supreme Court has allowed the worsening of copyright laws.

    Just because Lessig is smart enough to be on the right side of many issues, doesn’t make him smart.

  23. Marc

    February 23rd, 2008 at 10:19 pm

    He can’t be that smart. Choice of publicly available self portrait makes me question his decision making abilities.

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