Lessig For Congress?

luge writes "With the unfortunate passing of Congressman Tom Lantos, parts of Silicon Valley and San Francisco will be holding a special election in June to send a replacement to Congress. Given the area, it would be great to have someone who is both tech- and policy-aware fill the seat — and it looks like that just might happen. Lawrence Lessig has apparently bought 'change-congress.com.' A 'Draft Lessig' group is forming on Facebook, featuring some of Lessig's old co-workers at Harvard and Jimmy Wales, among others. No word from Lessig himself yet, but he's been increasingly vocal about politics of late. If it happens, it would be a huge step forward for the representation of technology in Washington."

Comments

Re:Real chance?

[Bob9113]

I doubt he'd be electable in a state which contains a large percentage (if not the largest) of content providers.

Perhaps not in the Senate, but this is the House, and he's a Bay Area resident. We have a few little companies here that are full of employees who feel pretty strongly about rational technology law; you know, Google, Apple, Yahoo, and about seventy-three thousand startups. House elections are local.

Re:I'd vote against him

[eln]

I'd rather vote for a guy that stood up for what I believe in and failed rather than someone who stood up for something I'm against and succeeded.

Re:Founder of Creative Commons

[Bob9113]

Lessig comes up all the time here - or at least, he did until he switched "causes" away from copyrights.

Not so. He was pretty clear about the fact that he feels copyright is a symptom, and the corruption disease must be tackled in order to advance rational copyright law which balances the needs of creators and consumers. He has not turned his back on copyright reform, but taken what he sees as the only viable path to the goal.

Re:I'd vote against him

[robot_love]

That's some good thinking there, tiger. Let's not vote for the guy who tried to change US copyright law on a shoe-string budget against the wishes of the biggest and richest corporations in America. Is it at least possible that the things he learned going through that could help him to be succesful next time? Or do you win all your SCOTUS cases first time? What's that? You've never fought a case against corruption at the level of the supreme court? You've never even fought any court cases against corruption?

I don't mean to sound like a fanboy, but Lessig has proven that he's willing to fight for the things I (and likely you, this being Slashdot and all) actually care about, and you slag him because he didn't win his supreme court case! Unbelievable.