by Reihan

I recently wrote a post praising Lawrence Lessig, and it looks as though he is taking the idea of running for Congress very seriously. He took a courtly, gentlemanly, and utterly devastating shot against Jackie Speier, the leading candidate, that strongly suggests to me he's in the race. Or, as a friend tells me, this could all be an elaborate scheme to raise money for Creative Commons, a worthy cause if there ever was one.

But anyway, while watching Lessig's video, a couple of things leapt out at me and gave me pause. The first is Lessig's apparent conviction that public financing of political campaigns will help ameliorate the worst aspects of what he calls "the economy of influence." So what exactly does Lessig mean by public financing? I'm not sure. I imagine his detailed policy proposals will actually be pretty sophisticated and smart. Right now, his Change Congress platform is summarized in three planks. Candidates would pledge to

(1) refuse money from lobbyists and PACs;

(2) ban "earmarks";

(3) and "support public financing of campaigns."

The wording suggests that Lessig favors tough limits on private contributions or at the very least a very large-scale expansion of public funds. This, in Lessig's view, will drive change. Might it instead protect incumbents, or entrenched ideas? Mark Schmitt, who has been closely involved in efforts to regulate campaign finance for well over a decade, wrote a terrific, insightful reassessment of the campaign finance reform movement for Democracy last year. He ended the essay on a chastened yet optimistic note.

Don’t build complex systems that put government in the position of trying to equalize all resources or ban all contributions. Instead, let voters shape the process through their own preferences, through organizing to enhance their power, and by using public funds to echo and enhance the preferences of ordinary citizens. Avenues by which large contributions influence politics will remain, whether they take the form of PACs, 527 committees, other nonprofits, or blogs. The best we can do is to offset their influence by broadening the range of voices that can be heard, as opposed to enhancing their influence by closing off other channels of money.

And fortunately,

Today we have the makings of a virtuous circle voters are more engaged, small donors have returned, and the most corrupt members of Congress have been held accountable. Reformers should ask: What are the modest, non-restrictive interventions that would help push this virtuous cycle in the right direction? If they begin to approach the question in that way, the next decade of reform might be more productive than the last.

One wonders if Lessig has spoken to Schmitt and others who've been in the trenches. If he hasn't yet, I hope he does.