Larry Lessig’s new CC project
p2pnet news | Politics:- Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig has started another CC project.
But this time it’s to change the US congress instead of how copyright works.
He’s joined forces with political strategist Joe Trippi to launch a new national, technology-driven grassroots organization to change the corruptive influence of money on government.
Trippi is the former senior adviser to John Edwards’ presidential campaign who served as national campaign manager for Howard Dean’s presidential run in 2004.
“Money corrupts the process of reasoning,” Lessig says. “Politicians get a sixth sense of how what they do might affect how they raise money. We will help build support for the reform that will free them of this dependence.”
In a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Lessig explained how Change Congress will work as a “political mash-up,” using the web and Wikipedia-inspired tools to leverage and amplify the important related reform work already underway, as well as empower thousands across the political spectrum to effect reform.
“The most exciting idea in this political season is changing how Washington works, which means changing the influence of money in Washington,” he said.
“Change Congress will help build support to solve this first problem in Washington, which is the distorting influence of money. Other problems may be more important. But no problem will be solved until we solve this problem first.”
Change Congress plans to aggregate and complement the reform work of other organizations, including Public Campaign, Common Cause, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Just $6, Porkbusters, MAPLight and the Sunlight Foundation, which along with Omidyar Network, co-sponsored today’s speech, say Lessig and Tripp.
Change Congress wants commitments from Congressional candidates and legislators to:
1. Reject money from lobbyists and PACs
2. Vote to ban earmarks
3. Support public financing of political campaigns, and
4. Support total Congressional transparency
It’ll provide the online tools for citizens, candidates and legislators to pledge their support to these goals.
The project is modelled on the Creative Commons project started by Lessig.
When they’ve taken the pledge the pledge, candidates and legislators can download a Change Congress “widget,” a small piece of HTML code they can use on their campaign or official websites, to show their support.
The site will also link these legislators and candidates to volunteers and contributors nationwide, who in turn, can provide financial support in place of PAC money.
Stay tuned.
[NOTE - p2pnet is running a special reader's survey. It only takes 20-30 seconds and it'd be a huge help if you'd fill it in. Please click here. Cheers! And thanks ... Jon]
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
March 20th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
*bets 10 bucks that no congressman will ever agree on the first commitment*
Come on, to them, it’s free money! You can’t beat free money…
March 20th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Meh, you can’t blame him for trying; it’s a great cause and I will definitely support it.