More Lessig

So he's still not officially running, but he's now got a campaign website of sorts. It's got most of what you'd find on a real site, but he's still not officially in. I'm not certain this is a statement of intent - perhaps he's trying to gauge support still?


He also sat down for an interview with Ars Technica, touching on his campaign and what he'd like to do in Congress. It's worth reading in its (relatively brief) entirety, but I'll pull some key excerpts here. First off, it's worth noting that Lessig is currently focused (academically speaking) on the corrupting influence of money in politics; to that end:

One simple means of reducing the political power of campaign cash, Lessig says, "could be done tomorrow." He wants to ban legislative earmarks, those juicy morsels of targeted federal funding legislators direct toward pet projects and political supporters. Lessig also hopes to encourage more robust public financing of campaigns, noting the salutary effect such policies appear to be having in states like Maine and Arizona. Most immediately—and perhaps most radically—Lessig says he will swear off contributions from lobbyists or political action committees, and he hopes to bring grassroots pressure to bear on other candidates to follow suit.

"This is about building a parallel to Creative Commons in Congress," Lessig explains, referencing the popular legal license he created to help authors and artists make their work available for free distribution and modification. Just as creators under a Creative Commons license cede some control over their works in order to promote a robust open-source culture, Lessig's political vision entails "people in power, legislators, voluntarily waiving that power in order to build a better system."

No more earmarks? Good. Public funding? Less certain how I feel about this. It might make for more reasonable campaigns, however - and perhaps shorter campaigns (which in turn would allow voters to pay more attention). The no PAC money is nice - and in a true blue district like the CA-12 may appeal to voters (pure speculation, that).

On policy, he is (as I noted yesterday) a full-blown progressive. However, and I imagine in opposition to his primary opponent, he's a "free-trade, pro-market liberal." As I've said, we could do worse. So what's he planning on doing in Congress?

"Silicon Valley needs a representative who can speak for the interests of the Internet, of making it flourish," he says. "As we're leading into this moment when the owners of telecommunications platforms are trying to leverage their ownership into control of the Internet, yammering about the need to turn it into the old Bell System, we need someone in Washington who's going to be able to stare them down."

But while Lessig wryly notes that the RIAA and MPAA "won't be excited to have an opponent of extremist copyright legislation in Congress," he also stresses that a congressional run would not be some kind of crusading extension of his work on "free culture." For Lessig, the central policy question will be, "Who ultimately controls innovation on the Internet? That's the net neutrality fight; that's the open spectrum fight."

As I've said, I've got mixed feelings about net neutrality. But as I've also said, we could do worse - Lessig is an intellectual and a thoughtful one at that. Given the district, he's orders of magnitude better than a Republican has any reason to hope for.

I'll credit the unparalleled Glenn Reynolds for bringing this to my attention; on Instapundit, he notes "one certainly can't object to the prospect of more serious thinkers, and fewer professional politicians, in Congress." I wholeheartedly agree.