Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has highlighted the role that money plays in influencing politics by forming a Super PAC, giving speeches around the country and even walking across New Hampshire.
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The main reason he’s operating: To update plan financing regulations and rid the nation of what he calls ” corruption”.
If he raises at least $1 million by Labor Day and doesn’t believe the other candidates are sufficiently focused on that subject, Lessig said he will resign his position at Harvard and run for president full-time. If he doesn’t, he will decide not to run. “Unless we fix this issue, we can’t do anything else”. You would like climatechange regulation? You want to take on Wall Street? You wish to undertake Wall Street?
His ultimate goal, Lessig said, is to pass the Citizens Equality Act of 2017, a campaign finance reform proposal that also would also expand voting access and target gerrymandering.
Lessig said that he realized his plan was off the wall, but after giving the plan a lot of thought, he decided this was the best way to get his message out. Lessig announced on his blog that he would consider a run in order to promote “citizen equality”.
Earlier in the year, Lessig backed the effort to draft US Senator Elizabeth Warren into the Democratic primary for president.
“Is Donald Trump the norm?” he said. “This is actually the year that individuals are far less close than ever before to think without politicians coming to the middle about just how to tackle the problem of politics”.
Born in South Dakota and raised as a Republican in Pennsylvania, Lessig has become a champion for campaign finance reform and a well known figure in liberal circles. The group aimed to back candidates who endorsed robust campaign finance reform.
“I’m absolutely competing to be the nominee, but obviously there’s a bunch of big hurdles to get over to make that possible”, Lessig said. “It is going to take excitement and people contributing and joining”.
Lessig described the package of reforms as being “the most important political reform since the Voting Rights Act of 1965”.
There are now five Democrats running for office, including Vermont Sen.
Another hurdle is making the debate stage with the other Democratic candidates, including former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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“That one percent of America has watched my Ted Talks”, Lessig said.
