Tomorrow, Lawrence Lessig will bring his message on the need to get big money out of politics to Austin, Texas.
In a talk called “MAYDAY: The Next Phase in the Fight to Save American Democracy,” the lawyer and activist will address a crowd gathered at SXSW Interactive.
Not among the badge holders? Not to worry. Join the conversation using the hashtags #sxsw and #maydaypac.
Whether you tune in virtually or in person, don’t miss these videos from our NationSwell Council event with Lawrence Lessig.
Here, he describes why the Citizens United ruling was, in fact, a gift to campaign finance reform.
And in less than a minute, he captures the reason for his political action committee.
Lessig has drawn a lot of attention with his mission to raise money for candidates who commit to saving our system. He’s not alone at SXSW Interactive in tackling the issue of making government work, as the conference deals with the intersection of technology and just about everything.
Interested in improving government? You can also tune in online or in person for sessions including “Move Fast, Government, Or Get Out of the Way” and “How Government Fails and How You Can Fix It,” featuring another featured NationSwell Council speaker, Code for America founder Jennifer Pahlka.
Tag: mayday PAC
Lawrence Lessig Breaks Down Mayday PAC
Harvard Law School professor and campaign finance reform activist Lawrence Lessig recently spoke to NationSwell about his crowdfunded non-partisan Mayday PAC.
Simply put, the political action committee’s goal is to raise money to support candidates who want to drive campaign finance reform. The irony of raising funds to influence elections to end the omnipresent impact of money in politics isn’t lost on Lessig; indeed, he addresses the apparent contradiction directly.
“Just like every single moment of the transformation of American democracy has used the existing rules to change the rules,” says Lessig, “that’s what we have to do here.”
Join the NationSwell Council Conversation with Lawrence Lessig
When it comes to making government work, Lawrence Lessig sees a straightforward solution. The country, he says, needs to overhaul the way elections are funded. The challenge, of course, is making that happen.
Lessig will discuss this challenge at a February 2 lunch from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. with NationSwell Council members in New York City. We hope you will join the conversation by tweeting your questions before then by using the #NSCouncil hashtag or joining the live conversation on Twitter.
Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard University, launched the Mayday PAC as a “counterintuitive experiment” to tackle the problem of money in politics. In phase two of this experiment, which was first tested in the 2014 midterm elections, Mayday PAC is looking to its supporters to recruit members of Congress who will support reform. As The New Yorker put it in a recent profile, “Lawrence Lessig wants to reform campaign finance. All he needs is fifty billionaires.”
In his TED talk, Lessig says that only by spreading funder influence beyond the “tiniest slice of America” can we restore the idea of a government dependent on the people alone.
“We have lost that republic,” he says. “All of us have to act to get it back.”