I stumbled on an article in this week’s The Nation about Lawrence Lessig’s new “Change Congress” campaign that’s worth checking out. Professor Lessig, famous for taking on corporate-friendly copyright laws, is trying to start a new movement to end money in politics through an alternative donation system. The Change Congress website would allow political candidates to declare a pledge not to accept PAC money, fight earmarks, and support public financing for elections and then allow people interested to donate funds to those candidates who meet the pledge.
I’m not really all that familiar with elections law, but with Lessing and internet campaign guru Joe Trippi behind it, it might have an impact. You can view the funding sources for Massachusetts on their map here.
Update by Charley: From a recent Lessig talk at Harvard:
Thanks Greg.
Lessig was an invited speaker at the 10th anniversary of Harvard’s Berkman Center’s, where he talked about Change Congress:
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Pork in and of itself isn’t bad. Legislators know their districts, and can use earmarked funding to accomplish things that are important back home, even if they aren’t national priorities. They can also be used to help reach compromise.
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p>The problem, methinks, is secret pork. You want spending somewhere? Fine. Put your name on it. Attribution would reduce the worst pork, if only from fear of embarrassment.
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p>Blindly railing against pork is simply unproductive.
Except I do fear that like so many campaign finance initiatives, the public is really not all that plussed about it, regardless of what the polls say. And until we can raise public outrage about these issues, it will be hard to change things or really grow this movement. Gotta try though.
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p>I’d also say, I hear where StormV is coming from on the earmarks. Pork can be ridiculous and harmful. It can also ensure things get done and some good projects get funding. The alternative to pork is to just give funds to Departments and they would then distribute the money to projects that meet certain criteria. But is it better to have bureaucrats in the executive branch do the project picking or elected reps. Not sure the politics would go away only the venue and the folks calling the shots. It may make it more rationale or it may not. It may be more efficient but it is also may be less democratic or accountable to the public. There are tradeoffs.