Yesterday, Professor Lawrence Lessig went on Bloomberg Law to discuss his new e-book, One Way Forward. It was a pretty surreal interview.
Professor Lessig said the real problem with campaign finance was corruption. Not the corruption that could be punished under any existing statute, of course, but what he referred to as “legal corruption.” And what is “legal corruption” you might ask? Wealthy donors give most of the donations. Of course, the Supreme Court went out of their way to define corruption as being a quid pro quo, a direct exchange of money for a member of Congress’ vote. The reason why they did this was to ensure that speech wasn’t chilled. If giving money to a member of Congress who supported the same sort of things you support was considered “corruption”, nobody would ever give money to a candidate they believe in for fear of triggering a Federal investigation. In his panic over the campaign finance system, Lessig–a lawyer–is corrupting the Supreme Court’s carefully crafted definition of corruption.
In response to the vast amount of this nicely redefined “corruption”; Lessig has launched a new website:theanticorruptionpledge.org. The pledge demands tax-funded elections (Lessig’s big idea: an odd cap-and-trade-esque program that gives $50 vouchers to every American who can only contribute the vouchers to candidates who commit to raising money in increments of $100 or less. Because the government telling us which candidates are worthy of financial support is a good idea.), limiting independent expenditures (read: directly suppressing speech), and stripping individuals of their constitutional right to speak in unison through the corporate or other associational form (although the Pledge name-checks the Declaration of Independence).
Lessig also declared that while he has no inside information, he thinks the Supreme Court will reverse Citizens United because the decision is just so darn unpopular and super PACs have money. I’m not sure what’s worse: that Lessig thinks the Court can be bullied by the mob, or that he thinks this is a good thing.
I guess one of the nice things about being Lawrence Lessig is that you can assert outlandish things on television, say that you are making the assertion without any inside information, and still be be considered a serious person.
