Lessig for Congress?

One of the more interesting books I've read for a class recently was Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. It's a book about creativity and copyrights, and despite sound like something only a wonk could love, Lessig succeeds in making it accessible, even pleasant, for the lay reader. As such, I strongly recommend it. Besides being an author, Lessig's also a professor out at Stanford Law and a blogger. Busy man. He may also be looking for a new day job.

Lessig lives in (or at least near) California's 12th Congressional District, until recently represented by the late (and sorely missed) Tom Lantos. I didn't always agree with Lantos - indeed the man often drove me up the wall - but I respected him (as Congress's only Holocaust survivor, he deserved at least that much) and found myself agreeing with him more than I might have thought likely. Now there's a Draft Lessig movement afoot, looking to him to replace Lantos. The 12th is a district in which the primary is essentially the ball game - no Republican has gotten more than 43% since 1982 - and more recently most have been held south of 30. Looking at the map such poor performance shouldn't come as much of a surprise - we're talking deep Bay Area here.

I imagine that we can do much worse than Lessig (more on this later). In recent years, Congress's track-record on matters of intellectual property has continually been somewhere between ludicrous and unconstitutional; debate has been minimal at best (the infamous Mickey Mouse Act, properly the Copyright Terms Extension Act, passed by voice vote leaving no record of those few who stood in opposition). Lessig would certainly change all of that, sparking a serious debate on an important and neglected area of policy. Of course it's not all peaches and creme - he's a vociferous Obama supporter and has also stood up for Net Neutrality (on which I remain neutral). But as I said, I imagine we can do much worse.

What's also interesting is the nature of his still-unofficial campaign: it started with a "Draft Lessig for Congress" Facebook group. The movement has gone from there to draftlessig.org website and has gone so far as to have established an Actblue page for the candidate (through which he's already garnered $24,240). Lessig officially remains coy; on his blog, he's said he'll decide soon whether or not to run. Making this whole thing more intriguing is the fact that, in his words, "A bunch of people have asked (and some in the strongest way possible) that I not run because somehow, as a progressive (the pc word for "liberal"), it is wrong to challenge another established progressive."

"Another established progressive" refers to Jackie Speier, who presumably was the establishment candidate to replace Lantos (who had already planned on retiring). Speier looks like Pelosi - which is reason enough to support Lessig over her. She also sounds like Pelosi - cut and run on Iraq, "bring the troops home to fix the economy," yadda yadda yadda (though interestingly, her positions on the Environment and Health Care are "Coming soon...").

If they're both progressives, I presume Lessig feels much the same way on the issues. Given the choice between the two, I have to say that Lessig is the lesser of two evils - in fact he'd be a fine addition to Congress (remember, we're not getting anything that smells like a Republican elected out here). Check out his blog and some of the other links; I encourage you to read Free Culture. This special election may be one worth watching.