Lessig Bets On the Net To Clean Up Government

christian.einfeldt writes "Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig really 'gets it' when it comes to the efficacy of distributed open source code production. Now he is attempting to use distributed production methods to expose corruption in the US Congress with the launch of another 'CC' organization — this time it's called 'Change Congress'. CC (as opposed to cc for Creative Commons) would invite users to track whether US legislators are willing to commit to Change Congress' four pledges. CC will rely on users to record and map the positions of candidates who are running for open seats in the US House and Senate. Change Congress will use a Google mash-up to create a map depicting which legislators have taken the CC pledge, which have declined, and which have signaled support for planks in the Change-Congress platform. The four pledges (which are not numbered 0 through 3) call for greater transparency in government, and less influence of private money in shaping legislation."

Comments

Augean Stables

[Stanistani]

This looks to be one Lessig's more long-term projects.

I think I'll head over and sign up.

Hand me a mop and some bleach, bro.

It's the spending stupid.

[with a 'c']

I think we all have differing ideas on what changing congress (Government) means. Lets start with something simple. Ask all candidates "what present of an individuals income should they pay in taxes?" It could even be a graduated rate. Then let government do what ever they like with that amount of "Limited" money. No limits on the money they spend seems to be the big problem.

Is he serious?

[R2.0]

I mean, really - is this a joke?

Repeat after me - "In terms of fundamental human behavior, the internet has not, and will not, change JACK SHIT."

Politics is the way it is because of fundamental human behavior - greed, ambition, and apathy. No "series of tubes" will change that.

Re:Is he serious?

[Cantus]

But concerted human action *can* bring about change. And the Internet allows that.

It's not the "Internets" changing anything, it's the people using it making that change possible.

Re:Is he serious?

[esocid]

I have to disagree with you there. The purpose is to start some sort of grassroots campaign or a watchdog group that will monitor what your senators are doing and try to force a level of transparency with them. This isn't really going to change human behavior, I'll agree with you there, but RTFA next time. It is trying to change the way politics are done. Your citation of apathy seems to be pretty accurate since all you are doing is sitting back complacent about the sad state of politics but don't care enough to try and change that.

Re:Is he serious?

[hotdiggitydawg]

Please don't forget that many wrong voices don't make right. The danger of mobs is mob rule at the expense of the minority rights. In most cases, these "minority rights" (sic) of which you speak are corporate special interests, so they don't even deserve the label "rights" in the same sense as human rights, voter rights, etc. Yet they still seem to be put first in the current system.

In any case, this project won't force the system to change - all it does is effectively add a greater degree of transparency. Its up to the people to force the changes they want.

Re:Is he serious?

[thanatos_x]

Repeat after me - "In terms of fundamental human behavior, the printing press has not and will not change anything."

Should all technological innovations should be ignored as they don't change human nature, nor could they influence something that does, such as education? I'll agree that humanity has changed very little in the past 2,000 years, and the fundamental nature of politics hasn't changed much - there's still deception, ambition, alliances, etc., however it has changed the effectiveness of certain aspects. Voters (a largely foreign concept 500 years ago) are now more educated, the butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the world causes hurricanes where it was ignored before, ideas can spread to the masses very quickly, etc.

So while maybe the fundamental nature hasn't changed, but how things are gone about certainly does. Your position is akin to saying that because the objectives of war are the same (erode your enemy's will to fight), machine guns, airplanes and the drastically increasing importance of public opinion are unimportant in war, when in fact they've fundamentally changed how it is fought, even though the fundamental goal is the same.

Re:Is he serious?

[thestreetmeat]

This isn't about changing fundamental human behavior. It's about increasing transparency, which in turn will increase accountability. If a politician is held accountable by his constituents, it doesn't matter how greedy or ambitious he is.

Re:Is he serious?

[QuantumRiff]

Myamar?
The riots of the people in Myamar earlier this year are a good example of how the internet is changing the world. Without the internet, word would not have gotten out about the huge protests, monks getting killed, etc. The country had a clampdown on all other media (and thought it did on the internet), so we would not have heard anything about it.

Now the fact that nobody did anything other than to say pretty words is a completely different topic.

Hopeful

[SpuriousLogic]

This all depends not so much on what congressmen sign up as it does exposure to the general public. If you can get enough constituents to be aware of this, then you can force the members of congress into it. But unless this is somehow tied to American Idol, I seriously doubt the general American public will care. As long as they have their fast food and idiotic TV shows, they could care less about what happens in government.

Re:Hopeful

[TheRaven64]

I had a simpler idea. Before the election, each candidate should fill in a 20-question multiple-choice exam about their policies. At the polling station, the voter has to fill in the same test. If the voter's opinions do not correlate with those of the candidate to a certain percentage, their vote should be ignored. An astonishing number of people vote for candidates who believe the opposite of what they do because their parents voted for that party, or they believed in that party's ideals a few decades ago when it still had some.

There would be nothing stopping a candidate from publishing their answers on flyers that voters could take into the polling station and copy, but at least it would encourage them to actually know what the candidate believes in. And then you'd have a legal, public record that could be compared against their track record at the next election.

Re:Naive

[zappepcs]

Well, anyone who has been reading my posts knows that I'm all for it. Knowledge is a very powerful thing. When the voters KNOW what the people they are voting for are really doing and saying after elected, they WILL wield their votes more powerfully. With knowledge, people become rather more opinionated. I'm all for letting the constituents tell their legislators loud and clear how they want them to vote on any given issue, in real time... put more of the of, by, and for the people in it.

Voter outrage is a bit more powerful than you seem to understand. When the politicians can control what news the people hear, they can control how those people vote. That should by now be common knowledge. When the people get to hear the truth, the will make their voting decisions based on it. yes, there will be those that will vote the party ticket always, but that will be a small percentage compared to those that will make informed voting decisions. People want to be informed, information wants to be free. The current system prevents both with regard to political information and voting.

Re:Naive

[7311587]

An extension might be useful for causing elected politicians to have desired behaviour. The problem is when a politician wants votes before they are elected you can influence them but after they are elected then they are influenced by others. You need to maintain the before election influence after they are elected. Creating a contract that the politician signs before they are elected is good. This contract will constrain their behaviour. If they violate the contract then the contract becomes their official unrevokable resignation from office. During the election you can then advertise which politicians have signed which contracts. After the election if they violate they contract they are out and people can vote again. Politicians have different behaviour before they are elected than after so getting weaker politicians to sign on might cause the more senior ones to sign on if they have too in order to compete.

Public Financing : Bad, Earmarks, Good

[tjstork]

I think taxpayer funded elections are the worst idea imaginable, because you ultimately tie the success of any candidate to a commission in government, who approves that finance. Such bodies are always politicized, and even worse, tend to favor established players and existing bodies. Nor do I think earmarks are bad.

First, I would advocate the internet model, with transparent donations. Let anyone donate any amount of money directly to their candidate of choice, and just have full disclosure over how much and who got what. If your candidate is 'Bill Gates boy', then it will be duly noted. But at the same time, if you work for Microsoft and are from that area economy, betting on 'Bill Gates boy', might well be in your interest.

Secondly, I have no problem with earmarks. Earmarks are comparatively small part of the federal budget and generally go towards pet district projects that generally do benefit the community from that district. If you don't like the way your Senator or Congressman does earmarks, don't vote for him or her.

If you want to really attack corruption in Washington, it is time to really dismantle the twin industrial complexes of defense and medicare. The defense industry is hip deep in all sorts of cosey relationships with the few mega-contractors that are left, and medicare is basically a buddy boy of the pharma industry. Any time a cut is threatened on both, we are treated to visions of [fill-in-the-blank country of origin] bombs exploding over all of our cities, or, millions of people dying because they were denied the latest $1000 a day super pill that only has marginally better efficacy than a $10 a day pill.

Sometimes, you just have to cut your risk aversion investments and focus on growth. No matter how much money we spend on security, if someone wants to bomb us, that bad, they are going to bomb us. And, people are going to die, no matter how much we spend.

So let's cap medicare and cut defense.

Re:Public Financing : Bad, Earmarks, Good

[hyades1]

You misunderstand how the system works. Taxpayer funding for elections works just fine in Canada and other civilized countries. Ensuring fairness is trivially easy, and it cuts those idiotic two-year American campaigns to a matter of weeks. And our politicians actually do real work, instead of spending every moment trying to raise more money so they can outspend their rivals in the next election.

There's still problems in Canada relating to lobbyists and special interests, and the system (though better than the US system) still has many flaws. But any slight tendency to favour existing parties is easily overcome. Canada's Green Party is knocking roadblocks aside right this minute, and will likely elect one or more candidates in the next federal election.

I agree with you that sacrificing civil liberties for security won't make you safe. And the cure is definitely worse than the disease.

4 pledges

[esocid]

Since the summary doesn't list what they all are. Here they are:

1. No money from lobbyists or PACs
2. Vote to end earmarks
3. Support publicly-financed campaigns
4. Support reform to increase Congressional transparency

Re:4 pledges

[sapphire wyvern]

Easy enough to fix. If the campaigns are publicly funded, then the amount of money handed out is known in advance. Then, demand that the candidates hand over invoices & receipts for the monies spent on the campaign, and all remaining monies. There: no living off the campaign funds. Sounds pretty reasonable to me!

Actually, in Australia, I believe the bulk of campaign funds are public in origin. Unfortunately, we also permit private & corporate donations, which means we still have a certain amount of undue influence (more's the pity). However, Australian politics do not appear to be (quite) as corrupt as American. For instance, I have a great deal of faith in our electoral administration; our elections are run by an NGO called the Australian Electoral Commission. Elections are strictly paper-and-pencil affairs, with counting done by hand, by volunteers, with scrutineers from any political party that wishes to attend. I would be shocked to the core if we had the same sort of shenanigans that seem to surround American electronic vote-rigging machines.

Re:4 pledges

[ArsonSmith]

3. Support publicly-financed campaigns

I never understood this one. Put the people worried about getting re-elected in charge of giving out money to their opponents? No room for corruption there huh?

Re:Naive

[darjen]

I don't think the public cares much about what their politicians do. There must be a reason most congressmen are re-elected. They could be completely transparent in everything they do and still not be held accountable for their actions by the voters. This is because the public operates under the assumption that the government generally takes care of things people normally don't want to do. Yet, the same problems of human nature continue to occur year after year. The best we can hope for is that people begin to realize that this isn't the case, and stop depending on the government to take care of them.

Use the 'net to draft legislation with wiki's

[gethoht]

Let's use the net to draft legislation as well! Senator Chris Romer of CO has proposed the idea of using a wiki as a way to have the people input their ideas into legislation:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jan/29/skiers-might-get-become-citizen-lawmakers/

I think it's a great idea. To me it's one of the greatest ideas for implementing true democracy that I've ever seen.

And who is watching?

[vinn01]

The formation of this watchdog group, or any grassroots organization that aspires to be a movement, assumes that people have an non-short attention span. I think that's a poor assumption and most marketers would agree. It's a long known lesson that most people are far too lazy to pay attention for even a few seconds.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll reach for my remote control and go back to watching the pablum that network television is spewing. Change Congress? Well, maybe I'll change the channel.

Transparency is the best solution of the 4 pledges

[zuikaku]

1. No money from lobbyists or PACs
      While we like to think of politicians as corrupt, money-grubbing jerks who'll take money from any lobbyist in order to stay in office, the truth is that most politicians already believe in certain causes and will gladly take money from their allies in those causes. The NRA is not likely to change the mind of an anti-gun senator with promises of money. That senator is likely getting money from an anti-gun group already, since that group's aims match his own. Perhaps this would be less true of corporate lobbying, but transparency could help alleviate this by letting voters see who a politicians allies are. If a politician were known to be taking Archer-Daniels money, and that politician then voted for more ethanol subsidies, I might be less likely to vote for him next time. Long story short, I don't think there is much quid-pro-quo going on, it's more an aligning of interests between pols and PACs. This is not to mention the potential freedom of speech issues of banning lobbying. After all, everyone has the right to petition the government.

2. Vote to end earmarks
      This is kind of like laws against profanity - "I know it when I hear it". One man's earmark is another's worthy cause. It would be ideal if we could prevent earmarks, but defining exactly what an earmark is in such a way as to make it difficult or impossible to pass another earmark without also impacting useful legislation is practically impossible. English is a rich language that lets you say one thing and mean another in some cases, and politicians are especially adept at using the language to get what they want. Transparency is the best choice here as well, since the only sure way for "obvious" earmarks to be stopped is if the people are aware that they have been attached to unrelated bills or perverted the intentions of related bills.

3. Support publicly-financed campaigns
      To me, this is the worst of all the pledges. Why should we have political welfare for people running for office? Do we really want our tax dollars spent so that some candidates can have an election allegedly free of special interests? Remember, he who controls the gold makes the rules, so public financing could be perverted into an institution that funds only "worthy" candidates, with "worthy" defined by whomever is currently in power. Even with the currently limited system for Presidential candidates, the candidates have to raise a certain amount of money and be subject to other restrictions that they find onerous. This is one reason why many of the present candidates did not accept public funding - it got in the way of raising the real sums they needed to win.

4. Support reform to increase Congressional transparency
      This is one pledge I can get behind, but the devil is in the implementation. Every donation to every candidate would need to be disclosed, preferably on the web, and there would need to be dire consequences if anyone was caught trying to hide a donation or the source of a donation. Every bill, including amendments and votes, would need to be available as well. All meetings would need to be open, meaning that the press (at the least) is invited and minutes are taken and made available on-line (with reasonable exceptions for things like national security issues and maybe a few others - of course, this can be perverted as well). There are numerous documents that the government has erroneously (or illegally, if it was to CYA) classified as secret which would need to be declassified, and better oversight for what can be classified should be put into place (perhaps this is a bit beyond the scope of Congress itself). Some of these things already exist, to some degree.

Re:Transparency is the best solution of the 4 pled

[lbgator]

No! NO! NO! I only read through your second bullet. Your first was off base, but your second is unforgivable.

An earmark is a process by which congress can "go around" the normal process of funding things. Please read a book or Wikipedia or something. This is the third post I've responded to where the parent has been way off base in their understanding of what an Earmark is. Congress, in general, funnels money into one of 13 general. These "pots" (Appropriations Subcommittees) have stated and precise ways for people who know to make decisions on what to fund. When Congress funds the Health/Human Services Subcommittee, and that board decides to put $XM into new hospital initiatives, and that board decides to put a new hospital in BFE - that is the designated process, NOT AN EARMARK. When a politician with a lot of clout decides that his district needs a new hospital and makes it happen, THAT IS AN EARMARK. There is a precise definition of earmark. You can argue whether earmarks are good or bad - but not whether individual legislation is or isn't an earmark. Apologies for being rude. But seriously... +4 Insightful? Larry Lessig is a very smart man who has clearly thought through what is plaguing our government. You don't even seem to know how our government works at a very basic level and you are going to critique the plan? And that gets marked "insightful"? On a completely different topic. Has anyone seen that movie "Idiocracy"?

Re:Naive

[Maxo-Texas]

Agreed-- admittedly Ron Paul had little chance of winning, but he was practically erased by both CNN and Fox.
Even after getting a higher % of the votes than Guiliani, he was omitted from the debate and Guiliani was a allowed in.

The local "conservative" radio station (i.e. pro wealthy people, anti-abortion types) tore him to pieces from their first question with stuff like "when did you quit beating your wife".

The same thing happens for minor democratic candidates.

It's really blatant some times.