

Lawrence Lessig and Change Congress start constitutional convention movement - dschobel
http://www.callaconvention.org/

======
kazoolist
Like most people, I guess, my gut reaction to large powerful corporations
making massive political expenditures is one of discomfort.

But, at the end of the day, aren't said expenditures just SPEECH? It's not
like corporate entities have a vote (and while they can, now, post-Citizens-
United, endorse a specific candidate, they still can't give money directly to
a candidate). So, they are simply putting their point of there for those who
actually can vote to consider.

I struggle to see what exactly is so wrong with that?

And, consideration #2: Wouldn't a better way to keep corporate/business
influence out of Washington D.C. be to reign back in the overwhelming
influence the Federal Gov't has? When you have FedEx and UPS jockeying over
who can better us the government to screw the other over, something's gone
awry, but it's not due to corporate speech.

And the final concern, what about small organized groups, that might, like,
want to put together a movie about a candidate, which express some sort of
opinnion about said candidate, and sell/distribute/advertise that movie 60
days before said candidate's election?

~~~
dschobel
I think your analysis is right on and I think this case is very much a matter
of principles vs pragmatics.

The symptom is plainly that people and groups of people (corporations) with
very deep pockets have vast access to and influence on all levels of
government, and influence is a zero sum game so that comes at the expense of
the mythical "average" citizen.

The Fair Elections Now Act is the most direct and obvious way to mitigate that
corporate influence.

I think that it also undermines the freedom of speech of those who have
influence.

So, the extent of my understanding/analysis at this point is that essentially
what we are looking at is a decision between the welfare of American democracy
vs the principles upon which it was founded.

I know the hard-line libertarians will decry me for that sentiment claiming
that the two never diverge, but I don't see how anyone can deny a) that the
corporate influence is disproportionate to the numbers it represents b) rarely
aligned with the interests of the population.

~~~
dantheman
The most direct and obvious way is to cut the amount of money the government
is spending.

~~~
dschobel
I was going to ask whether annual expenditure has _ever_ decreased year over
year but I found the answer.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt>

Looks like it's not unprecedented but debt over GDP hasn't decreased year-
over-year since before Reagan, so it just hasn't happened in most of HN's
visitors' lifetimes.

------
cwan
Related discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1101508>

(And my comment which probably is more salient here: from Reason.com - "Stop
the Car, Larry. I Want to Get Out", excerpt: "While the folks at Cato would
respond to special-interest lobbying by reducing the size and scope of
government so less of life is politicized and there is less to lobby about,
Lessig would respond by amending the Constitution to restrict freedom of
speech.")

~~~
dantheman
Agreed, I spent some time talking to some of the people @ the Change Congress
group when they first started. I told them the problem wasn't speech or
lobbying it was the amount of money that was being spent by congress, and that
if they instead spent their efforts having legislation moved from federal to
state they would succeed in making lobbying to expensive to be worth it. They
told me I was pushing my own agenda and that I didn't care about corruption.

You have to ask yourself are you looking at fixing systemic causes or merely
putting a bandaid on a flawed system.

~~~
jerf
I think increased Federalism is really our only hope. Increased
centralization, or even our current level of centralization, simply makes the
central control construct too rich a target to pass up, and too easy a target
to capture. This is the 21st century, and everything else is decentralizing;
why isn't governance?

We shouldn't be arguing about which one-size-fits-all health care plan should
be enacted at the national level (and it's extremely hazardous for an entity
which can print money to be doing anything of that nature anyhow); we should
be letting the lower jurisdictions work it out. (If you don't think states are
large enough to do that, go look at actual stats; many states are larger than
entire major European countries and nothing would prevent states from banding
together or adopting each other's systems once proved, it's not like poor
Rhode Island would have to come up with their own _de novo_ plan. In fact such
sharing mechanisms already exist to some extent.)

It is also a trivial exercise to show this permits a much larger set of people
to get the much more of the things they desire out of their government,
whatever those things may be (including "less things" if that's what the
people want).

~~~
dantheman
In fact, you can see in MA we have a universal healthcare bill much like the
one being proposed and let me tell you it's causing all sorts of problems.

[http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/art...](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/03/02/mass_healthcare_reform_is_failing_us/)

------
barnaby
I support Lessig

I support him because what he is trying to do is MONUMENTAL. When laws are
purchased by the highest bidder they allow people to subvert the free market.
When laws are purchased then the democratic voice of the people has no chance!
Lessig is trying to bring free speech, and free markets, to the US. I support
Lessig!

~~~
waterlesscloud
Here's what puzzles me a bit- if you believe legislation and legislators are
up for sale to the highest bidder...then why do believe a constitutional
convention would not be the same, with much more serious consequences?

I think it's incredibly dangerous to imagine that a con-con would not be the
target of truly massive amounts of influence peddling. And you can't limit the
scope of a con-con either, so EVERYTHING is up for grabs.

------
elidourado
Is corporate campaign spending a big deal? One way to tell is to look at state
laws. Some states do not restrict corporate expenditures on political speech,
and others do. Can anybody tell the difference? If not, then who cares?

------
niels_olson
The point of corporate campaign finance is not to persuade the existing
officials. It is to select for officials who already support your views. They
are morally rightous crusaders on your behalf.

The fact that lobbying access does in fact also bring influence is also true,
of course, but don't confuse the two issues.

------
waterlesscloud
A constitutional convention would massively disruptive, and would almost
certainly lead to things the people who called for it would not want.

