moviemaniac226

Professor Lessig, thank you for taking the time to do this. I read Republic, Lost when it was released and it motivated me to start working in politics, so it’s sort of surreal to see it come to life in this campaign. That being said, I have a few questions:

1. Do you intend to include the DISCLOSE Act in the first proposal of the Citizens Equality Act?

2. Your campaign is essentially strategy 3 of 4 in Republic, Lost (“An Unconventional Presidential Game). If this does not succeed, do you plan on pursuing the fourth strategy, pushing for an Article V Convention?

3. This is a bit longer, so I apologize. The campaign finance reform community seems to be split into two camps: those like yourself who believe a bill like the Citizens Equality Act needs to come before overturning Citizens United and those like Wolf PAC who believe the reverse. What worries me about your approach is that even if CEA is passed, Super PACs and oligarchical donors will still exist, just alongside a public system. And while having such a system is important, Mega-Donors will always create the “distorting influence” you talk about in your book and the “gift economy” of Zephyr Teachout’s Corruption in America. While we can say overturning Citizens United would be the “next step” for reformers, we know the kind of issue fatigue Congress gets after passing a big reform and calling the job done (e.g., Dodd-Frank didn’t break up Too Big to Fail, the ACA didn’t directly control high hospital costs…), let alone momentum for a constitutional amendment. So: why not include an amendment like the one Congress voted on last year (Tom Udall’s S.J.Res.19) and restore donation and expenditure caps contingent on its passage by the states? I guess the point I’m trying to make is I feel like reformers will only get one shot at this, so they might as well aim to achieve everything: reverse McCutcheon, reverse Citizens United, reverse Buckley and truly end Big Money in politics.

You’ve spent a lot of time talking about the effect that fundraising has had on lawmakers. Now that you’re involved in fundraising yourself, have you found any of your views either challenged, reinforced, or altered in general?

Assuming you hit your fundraising goal and make it on to the debate stage, you’re going to be asked many questions about topics not directly related to corruption reform. What is your strategy for addressing these as a one-issue candidate?

Thank you for taking time to do this again. Republic Lost completely changed my perspective of politics. I'm also a big fan of the American Anti-Corruption Act, but one provision of it raises the thresholds for lobbying firms' registration. Why is this? Wouldn't this create less transparency and accountability if a greater number of lobbyists can conduct activities without supervision?

As a college graduate and policy wonk, I was excited to hear about your College for All Act. While it has all the right components for eliminating graduate debt, do you think there's any credence to the argument that state and federal funding with essentially no strings attached is partially responsible for rising higher ed costs, since they have no incentive to control spending or at least focus it on improving academic outcomes? If that's the case, I'd think that a bill like this would need to have some sort of cost-control requirement on the part of public colleges, whether that means having budgets reviewed and approved by the Education Department, or capping it somewhere around inflation.

Are there any differences between a case like this, which defines marriage by statute, and a potential case in a state that has a constitutional amendment defining marriage?

Edit: By the way, I live a few blocks down from your Pittsburgh branch. I was ecstatic to hear the ACLU was bringing the fight to this state. Thanks for all your hard work!