bwcpete

Hi Mr. Lessig,

First I loved your book Republic Lost, it lays out the issues with the current system very well. While I completely support Mayday PAC and the goal of campaign finance reform isn't there a serious limit on what Congress can accomplish? The Supreme Court has so narrowly defined the government's interest in campaign finance reform, to only apply to quid pro quo corruption, that anything Congress can pass would likely be ruled unconstitutional anyway.
My question is, how does Mayday PAC plan to support legislation that is both effective and likely to be held constitutional given this restriction?

The best solution to this problem was trigger matching funds. But SCOTUS ruled them unconstitutional in Arizona free enterprise v. Bennett in a less well known campaign finance case. Arizona's marching funds were even triggered by independent expenditures.

The best public financing systems left are small donor matching system or a voucher system as Prof. Lessig has endorsed. New York City has, probably, the most effective small donor matching system (not that there is a lot of competition).

Small donor matching systems (see New York City) deals with these problems. A candidate qualifies by raising a set amount prior to receiving public funds to avoid the problem of not having any support before getting money from the public fisc. Because its a matching program candidates with more support get more funds and every small contribution is matched so there is no selective funding problem.