Lawrence Lessig's presentation to the Netroots Nation Salon here in San Francisco. Take a look.

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Lessig stopped by the Brave New Films office and spoke briefly about Change Congress.

Lessig posted an idea to the Change.org 's Ideas for Change project and its one that we hope you will support. We also hope you will submit your own ideas and share them with our community back here. Lessig's idea focuses on supporting a realistic way in which citizens (you and me) will fund our nation's elections, not special interests and Washington lobbyists.

Please support this idea by voting for it . Also, please submit your own ideas and share them with us by posting a link back here.

Change Congress founder Lawrence Lessig was on Charlie Rose tonight. If you missed it, you can watch the interview here.

About 36 minutes in Lessig says this:

"I think in the next cycle, what you see in the way that politics functions will be unrecognizable even from today. But when we're there, it will be a revival of ideals, of aspirations about democracy that will surprise us. The cynicism that we had in the 20th century will look very 20th century."

On changing the influence of money and public funding:

"So you add the bottom-up Obama part, the people-money part, to the public funding money part and put the two together. And that system is a system where you know that the politician is not worrying about money when the politician is making a judgment. He might be worried about how to remain popular but thats exactly the type of dependence we want to create. We want the member to worry about whether he has enough votes, or she has enough votes in her own district. Thats the kind of fear that should be the focus, not whether the lobbyists from Exxon will still be happy with this person after he votes one way."

Be sure to watch the Charlie Rose show tonight at 12 AM PT to see his latest conversation with Professor Lessig. It's sure to be fascinating. You can also see their last conversation here, on the Charlie Rose website.

Lessig has an article in this month's Stanford Magazine highlighting what happens when the engine of democracy (specifically Congress) contains a flaw. And that flaw is the "first problem." From the end of the article:

The flaw at the core of the People's House is dependency. Think of the dynamic of the dependency of an alcoholic. The alcoholic may be losing his family, his job, his liver, but we all know he will not solve any of those problems unless he solves his alcoholism first. It's not that alcoholism is the most important problem; it's just the first problem he needs to solve if he is to solve the rest.

There is no end to the problems that we as a nation face—from global warming to Iraq to the economy to media reform to education to broadband growth, even to copyright—but we will not address these problems sensibly until we solve this first problem: our own alcoholism, our own dependency on the way money has corrupted this government.

Corruption, lack of public trust and transparency, and a failure to get the easy public policy decisions wrong all contribute to this flaw.

Senator Barack Obama also mentioned recently what he thought was "flawed" about the Constitution.

This brings up an interesting point: Has calling to question elements of our own Constitution become improper and frowned upon? Are we willing to accept any potential inequalities or, "flaws" in it or do we treat it as the Gospel? The fact that we've amended it twenty-eight times shows that we're willing to add necessary changes calibrating it to a society that is constantly progressing and moving forward.

What will the next amendment be, you might ask. We're hoping that it has something to do with corruption -- it's oldest foe. More from Lessig:

It's not very PC to say, but let's say it: they failed. Many who went to government were drawn for the most venal of reasons. Corruption was at the center of government throughout the country for most of our history—much worse than anything we've ever seen. Daniel Webster, who served in Congress when Congress was considering whether or how to regulate the Bank of the United States, was paid by the Bank of the United States. He wrote to the Bank: “If it be wished that my relation to the bank be continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainers.”

After more than two-hundred years its time to make the Constitution work for the people again. Its time to close the loopholes and begin to tackle this new challenge. Fixing this flaw is the first problem. If we can solve this first problem, we can solve the many others that face us as nation, be it global warming or healthcare.

To all our San Francisco friends, don't forget the party tonight hosted by the Stanford Law School for Professor Lessig's new book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.

Here's the details:

When: Wed Oct 29, 2008

Where: W Hotel SF - 181 Third Street, SF

Free food and drinks for everyone.

Reception is at 6:30pm

Program is at 7pm.

Contact Elaine Adolfo at a2lessig@pobox.com with any questions.

Cross-posted from Lessig.org

Just over 6 months ago, I agreed with Joe Trippi to help start a movement for fundamental reform in Congress. We understood that this was a long term project. But as we felt then -- and as the events of the last 6 months only confirmed -- we face, as Al Gore has put it, "a democracy crisis." And until we fix this, we won't fix any of the critical problems that face our society.

Many of you urged me to do this. And so I'm asking now for a favor in return. We've started. We've made important progress. But we need you now to help us make an important mark before this election comes to an end.

Our first project has been to get Members of Congress as well as candidates for Congress to take a stand on our issues of reform. We don't demand that they agree with any particular reform (yet). We simply call upon them to have the courage at least to say where they stand.

The five people you see pictured above are the first five Members of Congress to take a stand: Barney Frank (D-MA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Jim Cooper (D-TN), Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), and John Tierney (D-MA). Four Democrats and one Republican have signed a pledge to support planks in our platform for reform. These 5 are joined now by more than 150 challengers who have taken a stand.

That's a start. But it's not good enough. And so I'm asking again: please help us get Members and candidates to take a stand. You can join our "pester" campaign by clicking here, and we'll make it extremely easy for you to write, or call, or email members or candidates who have not yet taken a stand.

This should be a simple thing in a democracy: Tell us, candidate, what you believe. It should be a hard thing to hide from. Yet in the politics of today, the simple thing is to hide. Help us make the simple hard.

Meanwhile, here's a link to the latest version of the Change Congress talk.

Lessig's slideshow asking DSCC's Chuck Schumer and DCCC's Chris Van Hollen to follow Barack Obama and the DNC's refusal of lobbyist money is up on Youtube. Embed and send around as you wish.

UPDATE: The event has sold out. We are looking into streaming the presentation as a live podcast.

This Wednesday, August 13 Lawrence Lessig will address an audience at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley. Click here for details and tickets.

In case you can’t make the speech, it will be broadcast on KQED Public Radio at a later date, stay tuned to the blog posts for details of that broadcast.

Lawrence Lessig dedicated his cover story with Metroactive to addressing political corruption. There is a lot of new ideas in here so even if you've heard him speak on the issue, I hope you'll still give it a peek. Here's an excerpt:

The political scientist will insist that there is no good evidence that money affects results directly. Despite generations of empirical work trying to show a quid pro quo, nothing has been found. Yet even without changing votes, the dynamic can skew Congress' work in predictable ways. This dynamic changes government. The work of Congress gets diverted. The issues that get attention are different from what they otherwise would have been. Think about Bill Gates' claim—"fifty times the amount spent on researching malaria goes to finding a cure for baldness"—and shift the reference to government: In 15 words, you have a picture of Congress.

"But is this really it?" you might ask. "That the dependency of private funding simply shifts the focus of Congress? That's all? And if so, is this really the issue to worry about?"

This is where I got stuck for most of the time that I've thought about this question. No doubt there's a theoretical harm here. But what's its practical effect? Why should a reformer worry about this before she worries about health care? How could a reformer justify working here when there are issues like global warming that need a solution too? One response would be to quibble with the scientists. For not everyone believes the story is this sanguine. Many former members of Congress, for example, are quite convinced that money has a significant effect, certainly on the agenda, but also on the results.

Many believe that money at least buys access. As Sen. Paul Simon put it, when you're handed a stack of telephone messages at the end of the day, most of which are from people you've never heard of, and one from someone who has given you $1,000, "which call do you think you're going to make?"

On Tuesday, Senator Ted Stevens was indicted by federal prosecutors for failing to report gifts he had received from an oil company to help him renovate his Alaskan home. The charges were not a surprise, though official Washington mustered its collective, and requisite outrage. Senators Dole and Sununu were quick to return campaign contributions from the now-tainted Stevens. Editorials across the nation were quick to condemn the obvious graft targeted by the government.

But I confess, I don't get it. Not that I don't see the wrong in what Stevens has done. That's obvious. What's not obvious to me is why this wrong is so different from everything else that DC thinks is right.

The concern with the gifts that Stevens allegedly took from oil companies is clear enough. If a Senator takes a gift from a special interest, he's less likely to weigh the interests of that special interest properly. If he's getting gifts from an oil company, for example, he's less likely to weigh concerns about global warming properly. He's more likely to ignore those concerns. He's more likely, in other words, to put his private interest (in continuing the gifts) above the public interest (dealing with the threats from global warming). These types of events are exactly why myself and Joe Trippi started Change Congress: as a way to address corruption in Washington D.C.

So far, so good. But what about the other ways that oil companies act to make it less likely that a legislator weighs in the interests of special interests properly? How do the laws and ethics of DC police this?

Consider the most obvious example first. Ted Stevens was elected to the United States Senate in 1968. As the Republican with the longest tenure in the United State Senate — ever — he had perfected the business of getting reelected to serve his state. Individuals and special interests helped him secure that tenure. Since 1989, those contributions have exceeded $11 million. Close to $1 million in that eleven has come from the Energy and Natural Resource sector. Oil and gas has given him almost 1/2 of that.

These "gifts," of course, were not to Stevens personally. They were gifts to his campaign, for the purpose of securing Stevens' tenure. But as someone for whom tenure is quite important, it is bizarre to me that anyone would see this distinction as a distinction that matters. If Microsoft gave Stanford $1 million to persuade Stanford to give me tenure, or if the RIAA gave Stanford $1 million to persuade Stanford not to give me tenure, there'd be no doubt that I would be disqualified from judging whether either was entitled to special benefit. Yet in DC, the doubtless is not. There's nothing wrong, in the world of DC, with Stevens' voting on matters that affect the industries that have worked so hard to secure his tenure.

And the gifts don't stop there. As Ken Silverstein described in Harper's last March, despite their relatively modest salary, many Congressmen and Senators live a life of extraordinary luxury. Not because these representatives come to Washington with their own private wealth (though more and more often, of course, they do). Rather, they live a life of luxury because more and more of their day to day existence is paid for by their campaigns. As Silverstein put it, "[t]he most lavish benefit of winning a congressional campaign is, ironically enough, the right to keep on campaigning—and therefore to keep raising and spending donor money." And that spending increasingly substitutes for the sort of stuff most of us have to pay for out of our own salary. Again, Silverstein: "[T]he FEC has permitted virtually any expenditure, from a night on the town to a resort stay with big contributors, to be drawn from [campaign] funds." Thus while it is a crime for VECO Corporation to pay to have Stevens' house renovated, there's no problem with VECO's PAC and senior executives giving Stevens' campaign many times more than that which Stevens' is then free to use to fly to a resort in Montana, or entertain senior executives at DC's most expensive restaurants.

If there is a difference here that makes a difference, I confess I'm not keen enough to see it. Rather, as I see it, we've got a system that periodically sacrifices the likes of Ted Stevens so that the appearance of policing improper influence can be maintained. But judgment distorting influences are shot through the economy of influence we call Washington.

The problem with this economy won't be solved by jailing one Senator. It will be solved only when we cease using private funds to fund public campaigns. And when we start paying representatives in Congress a salary that fits with the work we expect them to be doing. For the number of career senators like Stevens — people who go to government for a public service career — is, unfortunately, falling. In its place is a rise of representatives who treat Congress as a farm league for K Street. That dynamic, of course, only increases the power of K Street over policy. Or put differently, that dynamic only increases the corruption that has driven public trust of Congress to historic lows. (Rasmussen now counts only 9% of the general public with a favorable view of Congress' work.) Breaking that dynamic will take more than an ethics trial against this icon of the United States Senate.

Saturday was a busy one at Netroots Nation in Austin. After a high-energy morning starting with the anticipated Ask The Speaker event, followed by a surprise visit from Al Gore, Lawrence Lessig took the stage to dynamically discuss the ways in which money erodes trust. He gave examples from pharmaceutical issues to copyright law to environmental policy, showing how money is distorting the decisions our leaders are making. Check out the video:

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Last night on a warm, summer Peninsula evening, supporters gathered at the Stanford Law School courtyard to pay tribute to Lawrence Lessig and the movement created under his leadership, Creative Commons. While Lessig will remain on the board of Creative Commons, he will shift his focus to Change Congress and our fight to end government corruption.

Lessig thanked the leadership, particularly Chairman of the Board James Boyle and CEO Joi Ito, as well as supporters, for allowing him to move on to this project. Boyle delivered a satirical speech in Lessig's signature style. Amid the roasting and the toasting one thing became clear—the baton has been passed. At the event last night, Boyle said that when he and Lessig started Creative Commons, he told Lessig that the task of reforming copyright worldwide was impossible. Six years later, Creative Commons is a thriving organization that continues to achieve its goals. Change Congress has an even more difficult task to accomplish.

As the Executive Director for Change Congress, I got a strong visceral sense of what we need to create in order for Change Congress to "…end corruption in the next 10 years, or at least put a huge dent in it…" (as Lessig put it). Because in 10 years, we may be passing the baton to another one of Lessig's ideas. Here is one thing I am clear about from last night – the 'we' part of Change Congress is poised to grow.

Now, with the ceremonious blessings from Creative Commons for Professor Lessig to turn his focus on ending corruption, there is excitement among the handful of Change Congress staff and volunteers that were present that night. The task ahead will be hard work, many hours, fun and challenging all at the same time. And it is clear WE need to grow.

Join now and look for us at the upcoming Personal Democracy Forum in New York this June 23 and 24.