@Google: Lawrence Lessig: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It
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0:02 - 0:06>>Male Presenter: I think most people here know Larry Lessig. You should know him either
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0:06 - 0:13from his work at Stanford or Harvard, Creative Commons, helped out the Electronic Frontier
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0:13 - 0:17Foundation, the Sunlight Foundation. There's a whole bunch of places you should know him
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0:17 - 0:18from.
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0:18 - 0:22But really the reason why we wanna pay attention to what he has to say is because he's been
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0:22 - 0:27right on so many issues, whether arguing in front of the Supreme Court, talking about
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0:27 - 0:33things like copyright extension, or--if people noticed a few years ago--he started to move
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0:33 - 0:36away from copyright and started to talk about broader issues.
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0:36 - 0:42Specifically, the influence or potential corruption of money in politics and a lot of institutions
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0:42 - 0:47that are important in the United States. So, I think it's important that we make sure that
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0:47 - 0:53Larry not be a Cassandra. You know, the prophet who could hear the future, but no one would
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0:53 - 0:55ever believe her.
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0:55 - 0:58And so, I think it's important for us to listen to what he's got to say today. Read through
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0:58 - 1:03the book. It's really good. Don't forget to badge in. But also, after the talk, please
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1:03 - 1:08take a little while and ask, "How can we try to make sure that he's not a Cassandra--that
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1:08 - 1:09we do take these issues seriously?"
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1:09 - 1:14Because, I think, the influence of money in politics and in our institutions is probably
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1:14 - 1:19the most important issue facing us today in the United States. So with that, thanks very
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1:19 - 1:21much to Larry Lessig.
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1:21 - 1:23[applause]
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1:23 - 1:35>>Lawrence Lessig: Thank, Matt. And it's great to be back. I have one sacred text. "There
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1:35 - 1:42are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil." Henry David Thoreau, 1846, on Walden.
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1:42 - 1:51There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots.
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1:51 - 1:57Imagine a letter written by a young woman. "There were two clocks regulating our life--the
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1:57 - 2:05one on the wall and the one in the bottle. We built our life around those clocks. He
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2:05 - 2:07slept late so mornings were bliss.
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2:07 - 2:13“We could play and laugh without fear. But at some point, he would awake. And soon after
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2:13 - 2:19he woke, the bottle was opened. And then the older the day grew, the more terrifying my
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2:19 - 2:24life became. He was happy at first--just before dinner, the most happy.
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2:24 - 2:28“That's the only time I spoke to him, a moment to pretend I had a father who had a
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2:28 - 2:33feeling of love. He'd smile. He'd laugh. But then, he'd grow irritated. And by the end
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2:33 - 2:39of dinner, he was angry and if we weren't gone--usually just hiding in our room by nine--he'd
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2:39 - 2:42be violent. He hit me more than once.
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2:42 - 2:46“Once he tried to do something worse than hitting me and then I left and I never went
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2:46 - 2:55back. We struggled to do many things in that house to keep food in the house, to keep the
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2:55 - 3:02winter out of the house, to keep the house. But the one thing we never even spoke about
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3:02 - 3:04was getting him to stop.
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3:04 - 3:11“I don't know why. The bottle was just part of our life. We learned to live with it. Anything
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3:11 - 3:22more just seemed impossible." Now, the thing about us--we humans--is that we adapt, we
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3:22 - 3:25adjust, we learn to live with it until we can't.
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3:25 - 3:31And then a certain fever breaks out and if we're lucky, we have this Thoreauvian moment--a
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3:31 - 3:37recognition that we have to stop hacking at the branches and start striking at the roots,
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3:37 - 3:44the recognition that we have to become this sense of a root striker. OK. So, here's the
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3:44 - 3:46argument here.
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3:46 - 3:52I think that there's this feeling among too many of us Americans that we just might not
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3:52 - 3:57make it. Not that the end is near or that doom is around the corner, but that a distinctly
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3:57 - 4:04American feeling of inevitability of greatness, culturally, economically, politically, is
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4:04 - 4:10gone--that we have become Britain or Rome or Greece.
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4:10 - 4:17A generation ago, Ronald Reagan rallied the nation to deny a similar charge: Jimmy Carter's
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4:17 - 4:22fear that we had fallen into a state of malaise. And I confess. I was one of those so rallied
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4:22 - 4:28and I still believe Reagan was right today. But the feeling I'm talking about today is
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4:28 - 4:29different.
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4:29 - 4:36Not that we, as a people, have lost anything of our potential, but that we, as a Republic,
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4:36 - 4:45have. That our capacity for governing, the one thing that we were once most proud of,
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4:45 - 4:50this our Republic, is the one thing that we have all learned to ignore. Government is
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4:50 - 4:52an embarrassment.
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4:52 - 4:58And it has lost the capacity to make the most essential decisions and slowly it dawns upon
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4:58 - 5:04us that a ship that cannot be steered is a ship that will sink. This is not a Democratic
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5:04 - 5:10or Republican point alone. This is a genuinely multi-partisan frustration.
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5:10 - 5:14The sense that the government doesn't work is signaled by many different policy areas
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5:14 - 5:20on the left and the right, which systematically get blocked. And when confronted with this
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5:20 - 5:28systematic block, my suggestion is we need to exercise this Thoreauvian insight. So,
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5:28 - 5:32my objective this afternoon is to do a little bit of brainwashing.
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5:32 - 5:33[laughter]
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5:33 - 5:38To get you to the place that you see the roots that I want you to see. I'm gonna do that
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5:38 - 5:43with three some examples. One of them is familiar. Indeed, I told a similar story here the last
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5:43 - 5:46time I was here--the story around copyright.
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5:46 - 5:52On October 27th, 1998, I became a copyright activist the day President Clinton signed
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5:52 - 5:59into law a statute in honor of this great American, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension
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5:59 - 6:05Act--a statute which extended the term of existing copyrights by 20 years.
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6:05 - 6:10Now, the question Congress was supposed to be asking when it passed that statute was,
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6:10 - 6:17"Would it advance the public good to extend the term of an existing copyright by 20 years?"
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6:17 - 6:21Copyrights are designed to create incentives, but we know about this universe. Put aside
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6:21 - 6:22Star Trek for a moment.
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6:22 - 6:28What we know about this universe is that its incentives are prospective. So, not even the
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6:28 - 6:34United States Congress can get George Gershwin to produce anything more.
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6:34 - 6:34[laughter]
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6:34 - 6:38So when you ask the question, "Does it make sense to advance the public good to extend
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6:38 - 6:42the term of existing copyright?" it's a pretty easy answer. Indeed, when we challenged this
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6:42 - 6:47statute in the Supreme Court and a bunch of economists wanted to sign a brief saying it
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6:47 - 6:50did not advance the public good, this liberal, left-wing--.
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6:50 - 6:57Oh, I'm sorry. Wait. This is Milton Friedman--right-wing, Nobel Prize winning economist, agreed to sign
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6:57 - 7:02the brief but only if the word "no brainer" was in the brief somewhere.
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7:02 - 7:03[laughter]
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7:03 - 7:08So obvious was it that you could not extend the public good by extending the term of existing
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7:08 - 7:15copyrights. But apparently there were no brains in this place when Congress unanimously extended
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7:15 - 7:17the term of these existing copyrights.
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7:17 - 7:23What there was, was more than six million dollars in contributions from Disney and related
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7:23 - 7:28corporations seeking the extension of their valuable copyrights--the public be damned.
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7:28 - 7:32Here's another example. Wall Street Journal, at the end of last year, was puzzled about
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7:32 - 7:37the explosion of temporary tax provisions in our tax code.
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7:37 - 7:41These temporary tax provisions expire after a limited period of time. And that leads to
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7:41 - 7:48this extender mania, as lobbyists and Congress race around to try to extend the particular
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7:48 - 7:54tax provision for another period of time. And the Journal wondered what explains the
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7:54 - 7:58explosion and change in the number of these extensions.
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7:58 - 8:05Well, it turns out the first of these temporary provisions was given to us by Reagan in 1981.
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8:05 - 8:09Congress passed the Research and Development Tax Credit. But because the Democrats were
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8:09 - 8:13skeptical about whether it would work, they made the tax credit temporary.
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8:13 - 8:17They said they would test it after a number of years. And if it turned out it worked,
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8:17 - 8:21they would make it permanent. If it didn't work, they would repeal it. So, after a couple
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8:21 - 8:25years, the economists asked the question, "Did it work?" The answer is yes. Left and
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8:25 - 8:29right economists all agreed that it did work. It was a great tax idea.
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8:29 - 8:33It spurred a kind of investment that otherwise would not have been spurred. And so, it made
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8:33 - 8:39sense absolutely to make this part of the tax code. Here's the puzzle. It is still temporary
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8:39 - 8:41to this day. Why?
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8:41 - 8:46Well, as Rebecca Kysar describes in this piece in the Georgia Law Review, "The principle
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8:46 - 8:51recipients of the research credit are large US manufacturing corporations. These business
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8:51 - 8:56entities are more than willing to invest in lobbying activities and campaign donations
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8:56 - 9:01to ensure the continuance of this large tax savings."
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9:01 - 9:05The Institute for Policy Innovation put it a little bit more sharply. "This cycle has
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9:05 - 9:10repeated for years. Congress allows the credit to lapse until another short extension is
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9:10 - 9:14given. Proceeded, of course, by a series of fundraisers and speeches about the importance
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9:14 - 9:16of nurturing innovation.
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9:16 - 9:22Congress essentially uses the cycle to raise money for re-election, promising industry
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9:22 - 9:29more predictability the next time around." Now this dynamic is central to how Washington
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9:29 - 9:37works. We architect tax policy in part, at least, not just to raise money for our treasury,
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9:37 - 9:42but to make it easier to raise money for our Congressmen's campaigns.
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9:42 - 9:48And not just tax policy. When Al Gore was Vice President, he had an idea to simplify
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9:48 - 9:54the regulation governing infrastructure that internet would come across. Right now, we
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9:54 - 9:59have two titles in the Communications Act--Title Two and Title Six. Title Two governs telephones.
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9:59 - 10:04Title Six governs cable. Those are two radically different regulatory structures. Gore's idea
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10:04 - 10:09was to put them together in a Title Seven and fundamentally deregulate them--much less
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10:09 - 10:12than even network neutrality regulation would require.
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10:12 - 10:16His team took the idea to Capitol Hill and the chief policy person described--the reaction,
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10:16 - 10:23he said the reaction was quote, "Hell no. If we deregulate these guys, how are we going
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10:23 - 10:29to raise money from them?" And you get this kind of sinking, terrifying feeling here,
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10:29 - 10:29right?
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10:29 - 10:36Recognizing that we tax in part to make it easy to raise campaign funds. We regulate,
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10:36 - 10:42in part, to make it easier to raise campaign funds. Campaign funds driving critical areas
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10:42 - 10:48of fiscal policy unrelated to the merits of the underlying fiscal policy. Here's the third
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10:48 - 10:48example.
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10:48 - 10:52Think about Wall Street. We've of course seen this collapse on Wall Street, which triggered
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10:52 - 10:57a collapse in the economy. What explains that collapse? Well, as Simon Johnson and James
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10:57 - 11:03Kwak describe in their book, "13 Bankers," part of the explanation is this perverse mix
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11:03 - 11:06of too little government and too much government.
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11:06 - 11:14Too little government in the form of deregulation. In the 1990s, we saw an explosion of financial
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11:14 - 11:19innovations, derivatives. But these innovations were essentially invisible to the market because
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11:19 - 11:26a series of regulatory changes in the 1990s made derivatives, unlike other financial assets,
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11:26 - 11:31not subject to the standard requirements that have existed since the new deal that they
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11:31 - 11:38be traded on public exchanges, transparently with anti-fraud obligations tied to every
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11:38 - 11:39transaction.
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11:39 - 11:46So, my colleague, Frank Partnoy, calculated that in 1980, 98 percent of assets traded
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11:46 - 11:55in our economy were traded under these standard new deal, trade-based rules. But by 2008,
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11:55 - 12:0390 percent of the assets traded in our economy were exempted from these exchange-based rules,
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12:03 - 12:07could be traded without transparency, could be traded without anybody knowing what the
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12:07 - 12:09prices would be for.
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12:09 - 12:13It could be traded without any anti-fraud requirements being tied to them, producing
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12:13 - 12:19this shadow banking market, which encouraged--because of the uncertainty it spewed everywhere--the
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12:19 - 12:24bubble which eventually burst and brought the economy down. But that alone, Kwak and
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12:24 - 12:28Johnson say, wasn't enough. In addition, we had too much government.
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12:28 - 12:34Throughout the 1990s, there was a beacon, a constant signal from the government that
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12:34 - 12:39there was, in effect, a government guarantee that when this bubble burst there would be
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12:39 - 12:45a bailout on the other side producing what is the dumbest form of socialism ever invented
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12:45 - 12:50by man--socialized risk and privatized benefit.
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12:50 - 12:57We suffer the downside. They get the upside. Now I know you guys are not lawyers. This
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12:57 - 13:02is a technical legal term, but this is an insanely stupid way--
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13:02 - 13:03[laughter]
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13:03 - 13:08to set up a financial system. And all that stupidity is just before 2008. Even worse
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13:08 - 13:15is after 2008, where we add insult to injury in the way that Congress increasingly functions.
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13:15 - 13:21Because after 2008, after the worst crisis since the Depression, after all who are not
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13:21 - 13:26involved in that crisis had concluded that one of the principle causes to that crisis
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13:26 - 13:32was the architecture of deregulation that Wall Street had purchased until 2008, after
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13:32 - 13:37the dean of deregulation, the Ayn Rand-ian, Alan Greenspan, Head of the Fed, confessed
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13:37 - 13:42in testimony to Congress that he was quote "mistaken" about whether the banks would act
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13:42 - 13:45in the public interest as opposed to their private interest.
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13:45 - 13:52After all of that, Wall Street was still powerful enough to blackmail the Democrats and Republicans
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13:52 - 13:59both to give them an essential "get out of jail free" card and to keep the core flaw
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13:59 - 14:03of our architecture of regulation the same.
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14:03 - 14:10If the banks were too big to fail before 2008, the banks are only too bigger to fail after
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14:10 - 14:162008, leading many Independents of Wall Street to include that our risk of a collapse is
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14:16 - 14:22greater today than it was before the collapse in 2008. Again, why? What would explain this
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14:22 - 14:24stupidity in the architecture of regulation?
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14:24 - 14:28Well, lots of possible reasons, but here's the one thing we know. The fastest growing
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14:28 - 14:36sector in campaign contributions since 1991, and the largest chunk of contributions in
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14:36 - 14:42the 2010 election, come from the finance and insurance industries. OK. Here's one final
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14:42 - 14:42example.
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14:42 - 14:46I'm sure many of you, when you saw these images, had a question in the back of your head. How
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14:46 - 14:53was it that it's possible to launch such an experimental drilling platform, as the Deepwater
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14:53 - 14:57Horizon, without extensive environmental impact and risk studies?
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14:57 - 15:04All right. In my part of the country, we've just spent nine years and ten thousand pages
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15:04 - 15:10of environmental impact studies to permit the construction of this green energy technology.
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15:10 - 15:15So, exactly how much was required before they were able to build the experimental deep water
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15:15 - 15:18drilling platform, which was the Deepwater Horizon?
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15:18 - 15:26The answer is 17 pages before they were exempted from any further need for review, leading
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15:26 - 15:29Congress to be shocked of course.
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15:29 - 15:35[plays video clip] >>Male #1: I am shocked--shocked--to find
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15:35 - 15:35that gambling is going on in here.
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15:35 - 15:35>>Male #2: Your winnings, sir.
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15:35 - 15:35>>Male #1: Thank you very much. Everybody out in front.
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15:35 - 15:35[laughter]
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15:35 - 15:35[end video clip]
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15:35 - 15:39>>Lawrence Lessig: And of course, it was Congress that had required these fast track approval
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15:39 - 15:44processes, leading again to the question, "What would ever convince them that fast track
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15:44 - 15:49approval on experimental drilling wells made sense?" Lots of possible answers to that question.
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15:49 - 15:53The one thing we know is endless campaign cash driving to this conclusion. Now, here's
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15:53 - 16:03the point. No respectable Liberal or Libertarian or Conservative could defend these cases.
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16:03 - 16:09Each of them is an abomination from each of those three political philosophy perspectives.
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16:09 - 16:14So, how is it they become policy in the United States? Now, it turns out political sciences
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16:14 - 16:19are uncertain. They say it's a little bit complex. But here's the thing. You believe
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16:19 - 16:25you know. I just had to point to point to the money. And you believe you now know the
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16:25 - 16:29root cause to this stupidity.
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16:29 - 16:34And that's the core of my claim. Number one, it is because of cases like this, and I could
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16:34 - 16:39go on for hours, I promise--millions of cases like this--that Americans believe money buys
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16:39 - 16:44results in Congress. Seventy-five percent of Americans in a poll that we conducted for
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16:44 - 16:48my book conclude money buys results in Congress.
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16:48 - 16:50You think, "What were the 25 percent thinking?" I don't know.
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16:50 - 16:50[laughter]
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16:50 - 16:57But a little bit more Democrats than Republicans. But I guarantee you when the Republicans were
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16:57 - 17:01not in control, it was just as many Republicans as Democrats. So, whether it's two-thirds
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17:01 - 17:06or three-fourths, here's the thing we Americans all agree about.
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17:06 - 17:13Money buys results in Congress. Leading to number two. A belief in money buying results
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17:13 - 17:19erodes trust in the institution. So, last year Gallup concluded that eleven percent
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17:19 - 17:26of Americans have confidence in Congress. Gallup's number this year is a little more
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17:26 - 17:28optimistic. They say 12 percent.
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17:28 - 17:29[laughter]
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17:29 - 17:34But I just read today in the New York Times--New York Times CBS poll says that nine percent
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17:34 - 17:39of Americans have confidence in Congress. To keep this in some context, right, it is
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17:39 - 17:45certainly the case that there were more people who believed in the British crown at the time
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17:45 - 17:49of the Revolution than believe in our Congress today.
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17:49 - 17:49[laughter]
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17:49 - 17:55And at what point does an institution have to declare political bankruptcy? At what point
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17:55 - 17:59has it just lost the credibility with the people? What, nine percent isn't enough? Five
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17:59 - 18:06percent? What is the number when we have to say there is no more confidence in this government?
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18:06 - 18:10And that leads to number three. Low trust erodes participation in the system. Rock the
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18:10 - 18:14Vote, the organization that registered and turned out to vote the largest number of young
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18:14 - 18:20people who ever voted in the history of this nation, and arguably delivered the election
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18:20 - 18:25to Barack Obama, in 2010, found a large number of their voters were not gonna turn out and
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18:25 - 18:25vote.
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18:25 - 18:30So, they polled them. Why? Number one answer to that poll by far--two to one over the second
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18:30 - 18:35highest--was "no matter who wins, corporate interest will still have too much power and
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18:35 - 18:40prevent real change." And it's not just kids who think this. The vast majority of people,
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18:40 - 18:45who could have voted, didn't vote and didn't vote in part because of this belief precisely.
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18:45 - 18:50Now here, I'm gonna shift into professor mode. Here's my blackboard. It wasn't supposed to
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18:50 - 18:57be this way. That wasn't the intent. Framers of our Constitution gave us, as Conservatives
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18:57 - 19:04like to remind us, a Republic. But what they meant by a Republic was a quote "representative
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19:04 - 19:06democracy."
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19:06 - 19:10And what they meant by a representative democracy as Federalist 52 puts it was, "a government
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19:10 - 19:18that would have a branch quote 'dependent upon the people alone.'" OK? So, here's the
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19:18 - 19:22model of government. We have the people. We have the government. I do my own slides, so
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19:22 - 19:24it's cool the way that bounces, right?
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19:24 - 19:24[laughter]
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19:24 - 19:29The people, the government, marionette relationship between the two. Here's the problem. Congress
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19:29 - 19:35has evolved a different dependence. It's not just the people and the government. Increasingly,
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19:35 - 19:38it's the funders and the people and the government.
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19:38 - 19:44In a world where members spend between 30 and 70 percent of their time raising money
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19:44 - 19:49to get back to Congress, or to get their Party back into power--they can't help, like each
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19:49 - 19:56of you couldn't help--developing a sixth sense, a constant awareness about how what they do
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19:56 - 19:59might affect their ability to raise money.
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19:59 - 20:05In the words of the "X-Files," they become shape-shifters, constantly adjusting their
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20:05 - 20:10positions. Not on issues one to ten, but issue eleven to five hundred in light of what they
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20:10 - 20:15know will raise money. Leslie Byrne describes it when she came to Congress. She's a Democrat
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20:15 - 20:15from Virginia.
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20:15 - 20:21She was told by a colleague quote, "Always lean to the green." And then to clarify, she
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20:21 - 20:23went on, "he was not an environmentalist."
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20:23 - 20:25[laughter]
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20:25 - 20:35Now, the point is this a dependence, too. But it's a different and conflicting dependence
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20:35 - 20:44from a dependence upon the people alone because--surprise, surprise--the funders are not the people.
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20:44 - 20:50Indeed, candidates pay attention in campaigns most to those who max out in the campaign.
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20:50 - 20:55So, what percentage of Americans maxed out in 2010 in congressional elections in either
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20:55 - 21:02of the two cycles? The answer is point zero five percent of Americans. So, the Occupy
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21:02 - 21:07Wall Street people are so proud of their slogan, "We are the 99 percent." Bad marketing. They
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21:07 - 21:10are the 99 point nine five percent,--
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21:10 - 21:10[laughter]
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21:10 - 21:16who don't get listened to because they are not in the point zero five percent of people
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21:16 - 21:21who are directly tied into the influence that is our government. Now, this is--Supreme Court
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21:21 - 21:24doesn't recognize this yet, but you should.
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21:24 - 21:31This is corruption. It's not the corruption of brown paper bags secreting cash among members
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21:31 - 21:37of Congress. Up through the middle of the 20th Century, members of Congress had safes
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21:37 - 21:42in their office for cash. You think to yourselves, "I didn't know that they paid Congressmen
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21:42 - 21:43in cash." They didn't.
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21:43 - 21:44[laughter]
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21:44 - 21:47They just discovered that there would be cash on their desk and they needed a place to keep
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21:47 - 21:52it. [laughter] So, that was the way things were. But that's not the problem today. Our
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21:52 - 21:57Congress, in that sense, is the cleanest Congress in the history of Congress. It's not filled
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21:57 - 21:58with Rod Blagojeviches.
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21:58 - 22:03It's not filled with people who are violating any law. None of the corruption I'm talking
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22:03 - 22:11about is illegal. It's all legal, in plain sight. But it is corruption because it's relative
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22:11 - 22:17to the baseline the framers gave us of the dependence upon the people alone. We have
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22:17 - 22:19corrupted that dependence.
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22:19 - 22:24It is a dependence corruption because the wrong dependence has been allowed to step
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22:24 - 22:30into the middle of this system. So then, what does the corruption do? How does it affect
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22:30 - 22:36the results? Well, you can think about its effect in substance. But it turns out, interestingly,
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22:36 - 22:41bizarrely, but interestingly, this controversy about whether it affects the results.
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22:41 - 22:47There's some people who believe it doesn't affect the results. Indeed, the former Chairman
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22:47 - 22:55of the Federal Election Commission, Bradley Smith--I quote in his book, said this. "The
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22:55 - 23:00evidence is pretty overwhelming that money does not play much of a role in what goes
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23:00 - 23:04on in terms of legislative voting patterns and legislative behavior.
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23:04 - 23:10The consensus about that among people who have studied it, is roughly the same as the
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23:10 - 23:14consensus among scientists that global warming is taking place."
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23:14 - 23:14[laughter]
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23:14 - 23:21Now, to be clear, Bradley Smith is not a global warming denier. He is a corruption denier.
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23:21 - 23:24And he said this--we were on in interview on the radio. I just couldn't believe it.
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23:24 - 23:27I had to tweet it. But then I got in a lot of trouble for this hash tag.
-
23:27 - 23:28[laughter]
-
23:28 - 23:30But of course, that hash tag just means Bradley Smith--
-
23:30 - 23:31[laughter]
-
23:31 - 23:37just talking about--. OK. So, do we have evidence that the results are a function of the money?
-
23:37 - 23:41Well, there's lots of recent studies that are beginning to make this absolutely compelling.
-
23:41 - 23:45One of my favorites is this piece by Clayton Peoples that looks at seven thousand votes
-
23:45 - 23:48over a period of 1991 to 2006.
-
23:48 - 23:53It concludes, can show a statistically significant contributor influence in at least seven of
-
23:53 - 23:58the eight Houses. The one House you couldn't show it was the House that passed the McCain-Feingold
-
23:58 - 24:03Campaign Reform Act. So they were thinking good in that one term, but not any other period.
-
24:03 - 24:08But I think more interesting is this piece by Martin Gilens at Princeton. Gilens took
-
24:08 - 24:14about 17 hundred public opinion surveys about attitudes about how policy should change.
-
24:14 - 24:20And he narrowed that down to about 887, where the attitudes of the top ten percent were
-
24:20 - 24:22different from the attitudes of the bottom 90 percent.
-
24:22 - 24:28And he asked the question, "When the top ten percent think we should go left, and the bottom
-
24:28 - 24:3190 percent think we should go right"-- I don't mean that left and right politically. I just
-
24:31 - 24:35mean go one direction and the other wanna go the other direction. "--which way do we
-
24:35 - 24:36go?"
-
24:36 - 24:41And what he found was "when Americans with different income levels differ in their policy
-
24:41 - 24:47preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most affluent,
-
24:47 - 24:53but bare virtually no relationship to the preferences of the poor or middle income Americans."
-
24:53 - 25:00There is a vast discrepancy between what our Congress does if it in fact were following
-
25:00 - 25:05the people alone, and what our Congress does given that it's following the thing I'm taking
-
25:05 - 25:10for as the proxy for the funders. OK. That's substance.
-
25:10 - 25:14But here, you can also just more easily identify agenda because remember, Brad Smith also said
-
25:14 - 25:19it doesn't affect legislative behavior. And here, there is no basis for suggesting it
-
25:19 - 25:23doesn't affect legislative behavior. Here's just one example. If I asked you, "What was
-
25:23 - 25:29the number one issue Congress spent its time on in the first four months of this year?"
-
25:29 - 25:34It's felt like many years this year, but just the first four months. We're in the middle
-
25:34 - 25:40of two wars, huge unemployment problems, huge budget deficit problems. Still have a bunch
-
25:40 - 25:43of questions around health care and still have a bunch of questions around global warming
-
25:43 - 25:44that have not even begun to be addressed.
-
25:44 - 25:49What was the issue they spent most of their time dealing with? The answer is the bank
-
25:49 - 25:54swipe fee controversy. Now, what's the bank swipe fee controversy? Well, the bank swipe
-
25:54 - 25:58fee controversy is whether banks, when you used your debit card, get to charge more,
-
25:58 - 26:03or retailers when you use your debit card get to be charged less for the use of debit
-
26:03 - 26:04cards.
-
26:04 - 26:09That is the critical national issue that dominated the Congressional agenda for the first four
-
26:09 - 26:12months. And you think, "Well, why would that ever be? Why would swipe fees be the center
-
26:12 - 26:13of what they care about?"
-
26:13 - 26:18How many members of Congress got elected going down there saying, "The thing I'm going for
-
26:18 - 26:23is to deal with that swipe fee controversy." Right? Well, the answer is one Senator described
-
26:23 - 26:27it like this. "The fights down here can be put into two or three categories: The big
-
26:27 - 26:31greedy bastards against the big greedy bastards; the big greedy bastards against the little
-
26:31 - 26:36greedy bastards; and some cases even the other little greedy bastards against the other little
-
26:36 - 26:38greedy bastards."
-
26:38 - 26:38[laughter]
-
26:38 - 26:42So we have this kind of controversy. And here's the money line, so to speak. I don't even
-
26:42 - 26:48think the authors, Zach Carter and Ryan Grimm, saw the significance of this, but this is
-
26:48 - 26:49the real money line in the piece.
-
26:49 - 26:54They say, "The clock never ticks down to zero in Washington: one year's law is the next
-
26:54 - 27:00year's repeal target. Politicians, showered with cash from card companies and giant retailers
-
27:00 - 27:06alike, have been moving back and forth between camps, paid handsomely for their shifting
-
27:06 - 27:07allegiances."
-
27:07 - 27:13So, it's not just tax policy that gets architected to raise money for members of Congress. It's
-
27:13 - 27:18not just regulation that gets architected to make it easy to raise money for members
-
27:18 - 27:23of Congress. It's the very agenda of what Congress addresses that gets set in a way
-
27:23 - 27:26to make it easier for members to raise money.
-
27:26 - 27:30So why don't we address unemployment? Turns out unemployment doesn't pay so well [laughter]
-
27:30 - 27:36for Congressmen raising money for their campaigns. Now, my view is we critically need a way to
-
27:36 - 27:41change this. And we change this by fixing the dependence. If the problem here is that
-
27:41 - 27:49the funders are not the people, a solution is to make the funders the people, to give
-
27:49 - 27:49them a way--.
-
27:49 - 27:55I know that looks like one word. I mean two words, here. I don't mean give Congress away.
-
27:55 - 27:59I know a lot of people would like to do that. I mean, give Congress a way to fund their
-
27:59 - 28:06campaigns without Faust, without selling their souls, and thereby without alienating America.
-
28:06 - 28:10And the one way, and I increasing think the only way to do this, is to commit to a system
-
28:10 - 28:16of publicly funding public elections. Now, a particular brand of public funding is what
-
28:16 - 28:22I want to pedal here. I want a public funding that changes from large-dollar funded campaigns
-
28:22 - 28:24to small-dollar funded campaigns.
-
28:24 - 28:29And there are lots of examples of this around the country. Three states in particular, Arizona,
-
28:29 - 28:34Maine, and Connecticut, have systems where candidates opt into a regime where they take
-
28:34 - 28:40small dollar contributions only and the regime effectively amplifies those contributions,
-
28:40 - 28:45so that they can successfully wage a campaign having never taken a large dollar contribution
-
28:45 - 28:46from anybody.
-
28:46 - 28:50There are many ways to do that. I describe one in my book that's a little different from
-
28:50 - 28:56what Maine and Connecticut have done. And I can talk about that in questions, but the
-
28:56 - 29:00point I want you to recognize, the critical point about this way of funding elections,
-
29:00 - 29:06is if we had an election where the majority of Congress--the vast majority of Congress--took
-
29:06 - 29:14small dollar contributions only, then we all could believe, as we all want to believe,
-
29:14 - 29:18[laughter] that when Congress did something stupid it was either because there were too
-
29:18 - 29:22many Democrats or because there were too many Republicans, or because they just didn't understand
-
29:22 - 29:24what they were doing.
-
29:24 - 29:31But not because of the money. The essential element of mistrust and cynicism in the system
-
29:31 - 29:36would've been removed by an alternative funding system that gave us no reason to doubt the
-
29:36 - 29:40integrity or credibility of what that system was doing.
-
29:40 - 29:47Now, this is a way, I believe, to create a reassertion of the dominance of the people
-
29:47 - 29:52and the dependence the framers intended and to restore the institution of Congress to
-
29:52 - 29:56at least be a little bit more popular than King George at the founding.
-
29:56 - 29:56[laughter]
-
29:56 - 30:00OK. Now that's the argument. Here's the hard question. How do you get there? I don't think
-
30:00 - 30:06it's hard to describe the problem. We all believe we believed in the problem before
-
30:06 - 30:07I even said anything about it.
-
30:07 - 30:10And it's not even hard, I think, to describe a solution. I'm happy to tell you more about
-
30:10 - 30:17mine, but I think the solution is pretty clear. What is hard--maybe what's impossibly hard--is
-
30:17 - 30:23to imagine the political movement that brings about the solution. And the reason for that
-
30:23 - 30:28is an insight given to me by Congressman Jim Cooper, Democrat from Tennessee, who has been
-
30:28 - 30:31in Congress for as long all but about 20 other members of Congress.
-
30:31 - 30:35And Cooper said this. He told me "the problem with Capitol Hill is it has become a quote
-
30:35 - 30:43'Farm league for K Street.'" K Street, the home of lobbyists. A farm league for K Street,
-
30:43 - 30:47meaning members and staffers and bureaucrats have this increasingly common business model
-
30:47 - 30:48in the back of their head.
-
30:48 - 30:56The business model is focused on their life after government, their life as lobbyists.
-
30:56 - 31:01Public Citizen calculated between 1998 and 2004, 50 percent of Senators left to become
-
31:01 - 31:05lobbyists. Forty-two percent of the members of the House. Those numbers have only gone
-
31:05 - 31:06up.
-
31:06 - 31:12And so, in a world where everyone depends upon the existing system surviving, because
-
31:12 - 31:19that's the only way they have a lucrative after-government future, how to we begin to
-
31:19 - 31:25imagine that institution and those people--the lobbyists, the members of Congress, the staffers,
-
31:25 - 31:30the bureaucrats--ever organizing to change that deeply corrupt system?
-
31:30 - 31:36Well, in my book, I consider four ideas. One of them is the ordinary idea--the idea of
-
31:36 - 31:40passing a statute. That idea is impossible. I looked it up on Google. It is impossible.
-
31:40 - 31:41[laughter]
-
31:41 - 31:47It's technically impossible. It's impossible because there is no way they will ever radically
-
31:47 - 31:53change the system that both got them there and will carry them out in very well-paid
-
31:53 - 31:59lobbyist’s jobs. So that leads me to three insane solutions that are only improbable,
-
31:59 - 32:00not quite impossible.
-
32:00 - 32:04And the third of these, the one that I ultimately think will be the most important, is this
-
32:04 - 32:11suggestion of a convention. So, the framers of our Constitution in Article Five created
-
32:11 - 32:16the standard way by which the Constitution gets amended. That is, Congress proposes an
-
32:16 - 32:20amendment and three-fourths of the states ratify it.
-
32:20 - 32:23But then at the convention, somebody said, "Well, what if Congress is the problem? What
-
32:23 - 32:30do we do then?" And so, they set up an alternative path. The alternative path is that states
-
32:30 - 32:35can call on Congress to call a convention. The convention then proposes the amendments
-
32:35 - 32:38and those amendments have to pass by three-fourths of the states.
-
32:38 - 32:43So either way, 38 states have to ratify an amendment, but the sources of those amendments
-
32:43 - 32:49are different. One is inside. One is outside. Now, all three of these insane ideas are really
-
32:49 - 32:55just ways around what is, I think, the cancer that is DC right now. And it's recognition
-
32:55 - 33:03that the ordinary means of politics are just not feasible for this kind of problem.
-
33:03 - 33:08In this--you can think of--extraordinary times, what's gonna be required here is that we do
-
33:08 - 33:15something that we have not done in a very long time--to build a politics that looks
-
33:15 - 33:23different from this. A politics that is not--to borrow from my older work-- a 'read-only'
-
33:23 - 33:31politics--where people sit there and passively consume what's fed to them in broadcast form.
-
33:31 - 33:35But instead, read/write politics where people become more active and engaged and reclaim
-
33:35 - 33:42this from the politicians. Now, here's the hard part. I don't actually know whether it's
-
33:42 - 33:47possible for us to do it. We don't have any good evidence that we, as a people, have the
-
33:47 - 33:54capacity to actually take back power from the professional politicians and reorder it.
-
33:54 - 34:00No good example in our recent past. Lots of good reason to believe people are too disengaged
-
34:00 - 34:08to be able to do it. I do think we know, however, how that process gets started. And it begins
-
34:08 - 34:17with, first, clarity. The clarity of Thoreau. The clarity of a root striker.
-
34:17 - 34:21So it might not be surprising that the coolest website of the Occupy movement is the Occupy
-
34:21 - 34:27Seattle movement. But if you go to their demands page, you're met with this list of literally
-
34:27 - 34:32hundreds of demands, which they are now trying to decide which are the most important of
-
34:32 - 34:34their demands.
-
34:34 - 34:40Everything from protect the environment to--my favorite--end the industrial prison complex.
-
34:40 - 34:46OK. Which is significant there and also here, but that's the scope. All right. Now, I think
-
34:46 - 34:50all of these demands are important. It would be great to get Congress or the states to
-
34:50 - 34:52address any of these demands.
-
34:52 - 34:57But the point is if you come forward with a list of a hundred demands, you come forward
-
34:57 - 35:04with noise. And nobody hears anything because they can't hear everything you're trying to
-
35:04 - 35:11say. Instead, this movement needs to find a way to clarify and focus. It needs to celebrate
-
35:11 - 35:14its diversity, recognize there are leftists in that movement.
-
35:14 - 35:18They shouldn't deny the fact they're leftists. There are people on the right in the Tea Party
-
35:18 - 35:21movement. They shouldn't deny they're from the right. They should all stick to their
-
35:21 - 35:26principle, but they've got to seek a common ground.
-
35:26 - 35:32Not compromise, but a common ground so that they actually do speak for the 99 percent,
-
35:32 - 35:37not just the 21 percent of people who identify as liberals or the 30 percent of people that
-
35:37 - 35:42identify as supporters of the Tea Party. I think there's an exercise we all should go
-
35:42 - 35:42through.
-
35:42 - 35:48We should be forced to come into a room and say, "We on the left, believe this. We on
-
35:48 - 35:54the right, believe this." But then ask the critical question, whether there's a set of
-
35:54 - 36:01beliefs that we all share, that could be the foundation for some important reform. And
-
36:01 - 36:08my view is that if we could focus people's attention on the wide range of issues that
-
36:08 - 36:14they're frustrated about and get them to connect the dots--so whether it's on the left, health
-
36:14 - 36:17care reform, or on the right, government bailouts.
-
36:17 - 36:21On the left, global warming or on the right, complex taxes. On the left, financial reform
-
36:21 - 36:26and on the right, financial reform. Whatever the issue is, if we could focus them, they
-
36:26 - 36:34would see this root cause. And the root cause is this picture. A democracy that is distracted
-
36:34 - 36:36by a dependence that was never intended.
-
36:36 - 36:43And the practice of the root striker has got to be to find a way to get, we the people,
-
36:43 - 36:53to see this root. So, that's number one--clarity. Number two is a kind of boldness. Now, in
-
36:53 - 36:58the book, I make a little bit of fun of a guy you're familiar with.
-
36:58 - 36:59[laughter]
-
36:59 - 37:06So, Eric Schmidt came to a talk at the American Academy in Berlin. And it was the first time
-
37:06 - 37:09I'd ever met him, first time I'd ever heard him talk. And I was amazed. It was the first
-
37:09 - 37:14time I'd ever heard anybody lay out the Google vision.
-
37:14 - 37:19And I was astonished. I mean, I was astonished by him. He was extraordinary, but I was astonished
-
37:19 - 37:25by the Google vision. This is a place. You saw these really big ideas about how they
-
37:25 - 37:30were gonna, you guys, were gonna remake the whole world. The whole world.
-
37:30 - 37:34And I was more excited about the work going on here than I had even been in my whole life.
-
37:34 - 37:40I felt like this was amazing. So then I thought, "OK. Wow. This is a company of big ideas."
-
37:40 - 37:46And I said, "Eric, so there's a whole bunch of public policy issues where the world is
-
37:46 - 37:48against you guys.
-
37:48 - 37:56And I think you guys are right." So, immigration, anti-trust, copyrights, network neutrality.
-
37:56 - 37:59You guys are on the right side of all of those issues and the rest of the world is on the
-
37:59 - 38:03wrong side." And the reason the rest of the world is on the wrong side is exactly the
-
38:03 - 38:05corruption that I've been talking about today.
-
38:05 - 38:10So, what are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna sit around and swipe away these bad
-
38:10 - 38:15policies like flies at a picnic? Or are you gonna solve it in the way Google addresses
-
38:15 - 38:20a problem and radically remakes the world to solve it? And for the first time in that
-
38:20 - 38:25evening, a tiny idea was expressed.
-
38:25 - 38:28And it was expressed by Eric Schmidt. Because he didn't have any big idea to think about
-
38:28 - 38:33solving this, the most fundamental problem. I agree with Matt that we, as a Republic face--any
-
38:33 - 38:38idea like, "Oh, we're gonna get the Google PAC to be more aggressive in teaching people
-
38:38 - 38:40what our views about policies were.
-
38:40 - 38:45Nothing to change the core root of the problem. Just playing the system with all sorts of
-
38:45 - 38:54resources allied against you. What we need here is a Google-level idea. What we need
-
38:54 - 38:59is the kind of big idea that you deploy in every other sphere of social life that might
-
38:59 - 39:05get this democracy to the place that could address this problem that I guarantee you
-
39:05 - 39:1295 percent of experts say is impossible for the world to solve, for us to solve.
-
39:12 - 39:17Impossible. But that's the sort of problem you guys take all the time. That's what you
-
39:17 - 39:23do. That's your job--the impossible problem. And we need that. And we need that from people
-
39:23 - 39:26like you. Now, number three, we need courage. And this is also related to the company, but
-
39:26 - 39:28I won't pick on the company anymore.
-
39:28 - 39:34Instead, I'll talk about my friend, Arnold Hiatt. So, he's a humble guy. This is the
-
39:34 - 39:36biggest I could find of him on the net.
-
39:36 - 39:37[laughter]
-
39:37 - 39:39[Lawrence Lessig coughs]
-
39:39 - 39:44Arnie was the president of Stride Rite. They make great shoes, like Keds. He's also a loyal
-
39:44 - 39:51Democrat. In 1996, he was the second largest contributor to the Democratic Party. So, in
-
39:51 - 39:561997, Bill Clinton invited him and 30 other large contributors to a dinner at the Mayflower
-
39:56 - 40:00Hotel to tell him, the President, what he should do for the remaining part of his term.
-
40:00 - 40:07So, it's this dinner of these fat cats at the Mayflower Hotel to help guide policy in
-
40:07 - 40:10America. And each of them got to stand up and address the President. We didn't have
-
40:10 - 40:14any pictures. Arnie was the last one to speak. I kind of envision it like this.
-
40:14 - 40:19He stood up and he looked the President straight in the eye and he said, "Mr. President, I
-
40:19 - 40:26know you're an admirer of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. So I want you to put yourself in
-
40:26 - 40:33Roosevelt's shoes in 1940, when he reluctantly came to recognize that he needed to convince
-
40:33 - 40:38a reluctant nation to wage a war to save democracy."
-
40:38 - 40:44'Cause he said, "You, too, Mr. President. You, too, need to convince a reluctant nation
-
40:44 - 40:54to wage a war to save democracy. Not a war against fascists, but in a certain sense,
-
40:54 - 41:00a war against us fat cats." A war against people who believe, merely because they are
-
41:00 - 41:04rich, they are entitled to guide government policy.
-
41:04 - 41:07People who believe merely because they've been successful in the marketplace, they're
-
41:07 - 41:13entitled to have dinner with the President. People who have convinced the American public
-
41:13 - 41:20that this republic does not work. Now, put yourself in Hiatt's shoes. Imagine yourself
-
41:20 - 41:25in that room with 30 other fat cats and the President, basically saying to each of those
-
41:25 - 41:30fat cats and the President, "This is illegitimate what's happening here."
-
41:30 - 41:33There was silence after he said what he said.
-
41:33 - 41:33[laughter]
-
41:33 - 41:38The only published account of the evening says that Clinton's response effectively slashed
-
41:38 - 41:45Hiatt to pieces, humiliating him in front of the group. I think 14 years later, we need
-
41:45 - 41:49to recognize that it was Arnold Hiatt who was right.
-
41:49 - 41:56We do need to convince a reluctant nation to wage a war to save democracy. But where
-
41:56 - 42:03Arnold Hiatt was wrong was in his belief that politicians would wage that war. It's not
-
42:03 - 42:09gonna be politicians. It's gonna be citizens. It's going to be us. It's going to be root
-
42:09 - 42:10strikers.
-
42:10 - 42:17And I pray it's going to be you. It is our job that requires our courage. It is our republic.
-
42:17 - 42:25It is ours, not theirs. They took it away, but we let them. Here's one more story before
-
42:25 - 42:31I stop. So, many of you might remember--actually, many of you weren't born, but OK.
-
42:31 - 42:41Many of you might remember this event, 1989. The Exxon Valdez crashed into Prince William
-
42:41 - 42:47Sound, ran aground, eleven million gallons of oil was spilled into the Sound. This is
-
42:47 - 42:51the recording of Captain Joseph Hazelwood when he called in the accident.
-
42:51 - 42:54[plays sound clip]
-
42:54 - 42:54[static]
-
42:54 - 43:04>>Captain Joseph Hazelwood: Yeah. Ah, it’s VALDEZ back. Ah, we’ve— ah, should be
-
43:04 - 43:14on your radar there— we’ve fetched up, ah, hard aground north of, ah, Goose Island
-
43:14 - 43:26off Bligh Reef. And, ah, evidently, ah, leaking some oil, and, ah, we’re gonna be here for
-
43:26 - 43:30a while. And, ah, if you want, ah, so you’re notified. Over.
-
43:30 - 43:30[end sound clip]
-
43:30 - 43:35>>Lawrence Lessig: And ah, if you want, as, so you're notified. Over. Now, as many of
-
43:35 - 43:39you are thinking, there might be a little bit of a question about whether Captain Joseph
-
43:39 - 43:45Hazelwood was intoxicated at the time this accident occurred. He denied it. He said he
-
43:45 - 43:48only had four vodkas before he got on the ship.
-
43:48 - 43:52But his blood level alcohol indicated he must have been at least six times over the legal
-
43:52 - 43:58limit when he climbed on board that ship. But he fought it. His lawyers fought it hard.
-
43:58 - 44:03There was some ambiguity in the evidence and he was not convicted. So, let's say there
-
44:03 - 44:09was doubt about whether Hazelwood was drunk when he was captaining a supertanker.
-
44:09 - 44:15What there was no doubt about was that he had a problem with alcohol. His mother testified.
-
44:15 - 44:20She had known he had a problem with alcohol. In 1985, four years before the accident, Exxon
-
44:20 - 44:24had treated him for his problem with alcohol. After the accident, Exxon's President said
-
44:24 - 44:26he "thought he had mastered the problem."
-
44:26 - 44:33But in 1986, he had his driver's license revoked for a DUI. In 1988, he had his driver's license
-
44:33 - 44:38revoked for a DUI. At the time he was captaining a supertanker, he was not allowed to drive
-
44:38 - 44:40a VW Beetle.
-
44:40 - 44:41[laughter]
-
44:41 - 44:50OK. But forget Hazelwood. Instead, I want you to think about those around Captain Hazelwood,
-
44:50 - 44:57these other officers. People who could have picked up a phone while a drunk was driving
-
44:57 - 45:01a supertanker. I want you to think about the people who did nothing because all but one
-
45:01 - 45:05of those officers did nothing.
-
45:05 - 45:11What do we think about them? Now, I ask this question because as I think about the problem
-
45:11 - 45:19this nation faces increasingly, I believe we are they. This nation faces critical problems
-
45:19 - 45:23requiring serious attention, but we don't have institutions capable of giving them this
-
45:23 - 45:23attention.
-
45:23 - 45:35They are distracted, unable to focus. And who is to blame for that? Who is responsible?
-
45:35 - 45:40I think it's too easy to point to the Blagojeviches and hold them responsible, to point to the
-
45:40 - 45:46evil people and hold them responsible. It's not the evil people. It’s the good people.
-
45:46 - 45:48It's the decent people.
-
45:48 - 45:55It's the people who could've picked up a phone. It's us. It's we, the most privileged. Because
-
45:55 - 46:00the most outrageous part here is that these corruptions, of course, were primed by the
-
46:00 - 46:08most privileged, but they were permitted by the passivity of the most privileged as well--permitted
-
46:08 - 46:09by us.
-
46:09 - 46:16When Ben Franklin was carried from the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787, a woman
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46:16 - 46:20stopped him on the street and said, "Mr. Franklin, what have you wrought?" Franklin replied,
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46:20 - 46:30"A republic, ma'am, if you can keep it." A republic. A representative democracy.
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46:30 - 46:42A democracy dependent upon the people alone. We have lost that republic and all of us have
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46:42 - 46:53to work to get it back. Thank you very much.
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46:53 - 46:55[applause]
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46:55 - 47:08I'm happy to take questions. I'm a law professor, so I could call on people if you don't ask
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47:08 - 47:09questions.
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47:09 - 47:10[laughter]
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47:10 - 47:11Yes, sir.
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47:11 - 47:18>>MALE #1: Do you have any opinions on electoral reform? I can't vote for the party I want
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47:18 - 47:23'cause if I vote for anybody other than Republicans or Democrats, my vote is wasted.
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47:23 - 47:27>>Lawrence Lessig: Yeah. I think that there's a whole list of other reforms that we also
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47:27 - 47:33need to think about with democracy. The way we gerrymander districts, the way we have
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47:33 - 47:38winner-take-all seats. All of these things I think are critically important, too. I'm
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47:38 - 47:42trying to think about the sequence of problems.
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47:42 - 47:45And I think the sequence of problems is, this is the problem we need to solve first to create
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47:45 - 47:49an atmosphere, an opportunity, to begin to address the other problems. So, I'm happy
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47:49 - 47:54to sign up with you on that once we fix the problem I'm talking about here first. Yeah.
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47:54 - 47:58>>MALE #2: Hi. Two quick questions. The first is, what's the name of the Senator that came
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47:58 - 48:02up with the little bastards that are greedy in the greedy bastards quote?
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48:02 - 48:05>>Lawrence Lessig: He would not go on the record with him name, [audience chuckles]
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48:05 - 48:09so the Huffington Post piece says it's an anonymous Senator who said this.
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48:09 - 48:15>>MALE #2: OK. Secondly, about the Constitution Convention, using say, legislatures. How are
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48:15 - 48:18the state representatives gonna be different from the national representatives? 'Cause
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48:18 - 48:22aren't they just as greedy and looking to climb the ladder of political opportunity?
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48:22 - 48:27>>Lawrence Lessig: Yeah, so state legislatures just passed resolutions calling on the Convention.
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48:27 - 48:31And the question is, how do you populate the Convention? And here's the really insane,
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48:31 - 48:34totally completely insane idea, that I have for the Convention.
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48:34 - 48:39I think the Convention should be populated by a random selection, random proportional
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48:39 - 48:46selection, of citizens. Now, people think that's crazy. And I agree. You're not gonna
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48:46 - 48:48argue anybody into insanity.
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48:48 - 48:54I think what you've gotta do is to show them, like let's run 30 or 40 or 50 of these mock
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48:54 - 48:59Constitutional Conventions where we have deliberative polls where we randomly select a representative
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48:59 - 49:03mix of people from a jurisdiction and we give them the information they need.
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49:03 - 49:07And we have them work through the issue and see what they come up with. California has
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49:07 - 49:11a good example of this. The California Forward Project ran a deliberative project, deliberative
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49:11 - 49:16poll, around the question of what California should do. And the product of that is extraordinarily
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49:16 - 49:20impressive--much better than anything the professionals did.
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49:20 - 49:25And I think that signals the core insight, which is politics is one of these rare sports
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49:25 - 49:29where the amateurs are actually better than the professional. Because the professional
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49:29 - 49:35is good at figuring out how to benefit the special interests that the professional depends
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49:35 - 49:36upon.
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49:36 - 49:41And the amateur, like a jury, can be summoned into a state where they're not thinking so
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49:41 - 49:46much about the special interest. So, I think the only way a Convention makes sense is if
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49:46 - 49:50we can avoid it being captured in exactly the same way government has been captured.
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49:50 - 49:55And I think the only way to that is to have this randomly selected body be the Convention.
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49:55 - 50:01>>MALE #3: First of all, thank you so much for being here and for devoting so much time
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50:01 - 50:02to this very important issue.
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50:02 - 50:03>>Lawrence Lessig: Thank you.
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50:03 - 50:11>>MALE #3: My question is, given the election of Obama in 2008, and then the following three
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50:11 - 50:18years, how much of the overwhelming Democratic majorities and the election Obama have helped
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50:18 - 50:21the momentum of this campaign finance reform campaign?
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50:21 - 50:26In that, I think there's a lot of people who sort of generally understand the Republicans
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50:26 - 50:33were bought, but I think when the nation was rallied around this feeling in 2008, and then
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50:33 - 50:36the disappointment that's come out of it, I just--.
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50:36 - 50:45>>Lawrence Lessig: Yeah. You and I share that view precisely. The book is--. Obama was a
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50:45 - 50:49friend. He was a colleague of mine in Chicago. I campaigned for him. I worked hard for him.
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50:49 - 50:54I talked to a lot of people in here when he first was on the trail about how he'd be so
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50:54 - 50:57great for what we cared about.
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50:57 - 51:02But the only reason I think he was credible as a candidate over Hilary Clinton, was that
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51:02 - 51:06he, unlike Hilary Clinton, said, "This system is the problem. We have to take up the fight
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51:06 - 51:10to change the way Washington works. And if we don't, our children are gonna be facing
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51:10 - 51:12the same problems we faced.
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51:12 - 51:15And our children's children will be facing the same problems they face." So, he made
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51:15 - 51:21it--. He said twice at least, I have recorded in the campaign, "This is the reason I am
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51:21 - 51:27running. To change the system." And then he got elected and he opened up the Clinton playbook.
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51:27 - 51:31And he ran his Administration according to the way Hilary Clinton would've run her Administration.
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51:31 - 51:34And I think maybe Clinton would have done a better job. I don't know. But if Clinton
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51:34 - 51:39had done exactly what Barack Obama did, I think we should say, "Great. You did what
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51:39 - 51:43would come from that kind of Administration. But you promised, Barack Obama, a different
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51:43 - 51:45Administration."
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51:45 - 51:50I feel it's a betrayal from what we thought we were getting. It makes it really hard for
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51:50 - 51:58any of us to believe that reform is gonna come from the top or from any insider. So,
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51:58 - 52:03I think that this is why it becomes critical to think about these outside traditional politics
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52:03 - 52:09solutions, which is unfortunately, I think, the only path we've got right now.
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52:09 - 52:13He doesn't stand credible on this issue. The one person who is credible on this issue is--.
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52:13 - 52:20I will vote for Obama over any Republican except one. The Republican you've not heard
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52:20 - 52:25of. His name is Buddy Roemer. Now, it's funny you haven't heard of him. I mean, he was a
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52:25 - 52:25governor.
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52:25 - 52:29He was a four-term Congressman. He ran a bank for 20 years without taking government bailouts
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52:29 - 52:35and successfully created this community bank. But he has made a pledge in his campaign for
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52:35 - 52:38the Republican nomination for President where he will take no more than a hundred dollars
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52:38 - 52:40from anybody.
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52:40 - 52:44He will commit to no PAC money, full disclosure, because he wants to as his slogan, "It's free
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52:44 - 52:47to lead." But because he takes no more than a hundred dollars, everybody says, "Well,
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52:47 - 52:51you can't possibly win so, we're not even gonna pay attention to you." So, he hasn't
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52:51 - 52:55even had a chance to make this case in the debate.
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52:55 - 53:00But if Buddy Roemer were the candidate in the Republican side, that would be a game-changer.
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53:00 - 53:04If it were a Republican making this argument, then it would be much easier to imagine this
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53:04 - 53:06argument actually having play.
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53:06 - 53:08>>MALE #3: Thank you.
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53:08 - 53:15>>MALE #4: Thank you for coming to talk to us today. I have a question about--. I think
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53:15 - 53:19we all can understand that there's obviously a role that Congress has in perpetuating this
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53:19 - 53:23system. And there's a role that we all have in our lack of action in perpetuating this
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53:23 - 53:23system.
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53:23 - 53:26But I think one thing, you didn't get a chance to talk about and I don't know if you talk
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53:26 - 53:31about it in your book--I look forward to reading it--is the role of the Supreme Court and notably
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53:31 - 53:34one of your own bosses.
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53:34 - 53:39And how you talk about the people want to be more involved, but at this point, the Supreme
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53:39 - 53:47Court has defined "person" to be an incredibly broad system and how we can move away from
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53:47 - 53:51treating corporations as people without their movement and how we can actually affect meaningful
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53:51 - 53:53change without movement on the Supreme Court.
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53:53 - 53:57And a Supreme Court that seems very unlikely to move on that particular issue.
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53:57 - 54:02>>Lawrence Lessig: Yeah. So, the particular version of public funding that I advance is
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54:02 - 54:10completely immune from Supreme Court invalidation. Nothing in the Supreme Court, even this Supreme
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54:10 - 54:13Court's doctrine, would draw this type of public funding into the out.
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54:13 - 54:20But it leaves the problem of independent expenditures, both of individuals, George Soros or the Koch
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54:20 - 54:25Brothers, as well as corporations, which now have unlimited amounts to spend. And it took
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54:25 - 54:30a comedian to teach the Supreme Court that, in fact, they didn't have to be disclosed
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54:30 - 54:33if they all could be secret because you could channel them through a C4 that would itself
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54:33 - 54:37be identified, but the contributors to the C4 not. OK.
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54:37 - 54:42So, we have to address the problem of independent expenditures. Now, my view is the law should
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54:42 - 54:47not ban anybody from saying anything. I think corporations should have a right to participate.
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54:47 - 54:53But they shouldn't be able to dominate the political process so that we have not just
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54:53 - 54:58shape-shifting to appeal to the funders, but we have shape-shifting to appeal to the independent
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54:58 - 55:03expenditure guys and therefore, the same kind of dependency that corrupts the system.
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55:03 - 55:10So, the only way to get there without imagining a Supreme Court reversing itself is to give
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55:10 - 55:14Congress the power to limit, but not to ban, independent expenditures. And if you're gonna
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55:14 - 55:19change the Constitution from that standpoint, I say let's have an amendment that has three
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55:19 - 55:19components.
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55:19 - 55:26Number one, public elections must be publicly funded. Number two, contributions to candidates
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55:26 - 55:32should be capped. I'd say at a hundred dollars--equivalent of a hundred dollars. Number three, Congress
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55:32 - 55:36has to have the power to limit, but not to ban, independent expenditures of both corporations
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55:36 - 55:37and people.
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55:37 - 55:41It just has to have the capacity to create a time for election that's not just about
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55:41 - 55:47the money. But getting to the place that we can have the chance to have that amendment
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55:47 - 55:52passed, is the hard thing because again, I looked it up, there's zero chance Congress
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55:52 - 55:53is gonna propose such an amendment.
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55:53 - 55:57And so, if Congress is not gonna propose the amendment, what's the path to get it at least
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55:57 - 55:59on the table for states to adopt?
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55:59 - 56:00>>MALE #4: Thank you very much.
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56:00 - 56:01>>Lawrence Lessig: Yup.
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56:01 - 56:07>>FEMALE #1: Hi. I'm wondering about your perspective on venture philanthropy and the
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56:07 - 56:13role of money outside the congressional system. Is it a pure good? I'm thinking, for example,
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56:13 - 56:16of education reform, the Charter School movement, that sort of thing.
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56:16 - 56:21Or, is there some danger there that money is talking more than it ought to, even in
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56:21 - 56:21those worlds?
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56:21 - 56:26>>Lawrence Lessig: Yeah. It's a great question. I don't think you can say without reservations
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56:26 - 56:32that it's good. Although, you can say it's really great that it's out there, right? There
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56:32 - 56:41are foundations that are not disciplined enough to insulate and protect the recipients from
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56:41 - 56:44developing the wrong kind of dependency on the foundation.
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56:44 - 56:49So, it distorts them in a way that I think is not productive. And so, harmful. But I
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56:49 - 56:56think there are others that adopt a very appropriate relationship to the targets of their giving
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56:56 - 57:00that allows them to maintain their independence, but does support their work. So, I think in
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57:00 - 57:04a case-by-case way, we gotta make a decision about what's the appropriate kind of relationship
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57:04 - 57:06to be drawing in that case.
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57:06 - 57:07>>FEMALE #1: Thank you.
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57:07 - 57:12>>MALE #5: So, we're out of time to take more questions, but thanks again for coming.
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57:12 - 57:13>>Lawrence Lessig: Thank you. Thanks a lot.
-
57:13 -[applause]
- Title:
- @Google: Lawrence Lessig: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It
- Description:
-
In an era when special interests funnel huge amounts of money into our government-driven by shifts in campaign-finance rules and brought to new levels by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission-trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress, and that business interests wield control over our legislature.
With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how we arrived at this crisis: how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and reductive logic-and instead using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left-Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He plumbs the issues of campaign financing and corporate lobbying, revealing the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system. He puts the issues in terms that nonwonks can understand, using real-world analogies and real human stories. And ultimately he calls for widespread mobilization and a new Constitutional Convention, presenting achievable solutions for regaining control of our corrupted-but redeemable-representational system. In this way, Lessig plots a roadmap for returning our republic to its intended greatness.
While America may be divided, Lessig vividly champions the idea that we can succeed if we accept that corruption is our common enemy and that we must find a way to fight against it. In Republic, Lost, he not only makes this need palpable and clear-he gives us the practical and intellectual tools to do something about it.
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 57:19
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