
Steve Wozniak Endorses Lessig's Mayday Super PAC - Bit32
http://theinternethasasuperpac.com/
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zedadex
> Ready to help us get big money out of politics?

Wolf-PAC [1] has the same declared goal (both focus on campaign finance
reform, informally "getting money out of politics"), and the same means
(~~both intend to call for a Constitutional Convention~~ [3]), I wonder if
they might consider coordinating their efforts.

Ah, alright, did a cursory comparison of the two. Wolf PAC/Uygur's plan is to
overturn key SCOTUS rulings (e.g. Citizens United v. FEC, Buckley v. Valeo)
whereas Mayday PAC/Lessig's goal is to "unseat five congresspersons who are on
the 'wrong side of this issue'". [2]

[1] [http://www.wolf-pac.com/](http://www.wolf-pac.com/)

[2] [http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-
har...](http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-harvard-
professor-super-pac-big-money-politics-20140523-story.html)

[3] Edited to note that Lessig's PAC isn't planning on calling for a
convention (Lessig himself has called for it in the past, I was making an
assumption here.)

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pessimizer
I need more words and less marketing to convince me to send my cash to people
who have far more cash than I do. I need a very specific and very concrete
explanation of what they plan to do with it.

Is there a deeper link to documents with more detailed adult explanations of
what they plan to do, how they plan to do it, and the specific criteria for
support for a candidate? One that doesn't assume that I'm ignorant of the
current state of campaign finance, SuperPACs, and recent SCOTUS decisions?
Maybe a few names? I assume something like this exists, but I can't find it.

Or is this just LessigPAC, and I'm supposed to give money because I'm a fan or
something?

~~~
dpweb
It is completely explained on the site about the money.

1\. Whatever is raised is matched by some well-off people who are willing to
match.

2\. They are raising $12m total

3\. The money goes into selected campaigns where they have a good chance to
turn the election and make the candidates support the reform agenda. They hire
professionals who do this kind of thing.

4\. None of the raised money is used for admin expenses.

5\. If it works out, they continue into 2016 to turn more elections.

The question is, do people give a s __*? Sadly, I 'm pessimistic.. Drop $50 on
this I'd say a pretty cheap lottery ticket considering how sick the system
currently is..

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dingdingdang
I went through to donate and I have to be an American citizen to donate.. when
big multi-nationals are pushing America (and by extension the planet) around
then why should individuals from multiple-different-nations not be able to
respond?

~~~
btbuildem
They should add an option so that foreigners can give money to individual
americans on there - who in turn give it to the PAC.

~~~
gjkood
IANAL: But please be careful. You may be breaking the law if you do this.
Dinesh D'Souza is going to do jail time for something similar (using straw
donors to circumvent existing campaign finance laws and limits).

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rthomas6
They have a long way to go. I'm not sure they're going to make $5m. They only
have $1.1m raised now, and only 2 weeks left.

~~~
ColinDabritz
Yes, it's running a bit behind that curve.

On the plus side, there is at least another 7 million out there that people
want to go to this cause, as we can see by the matching amounts.

For the moment there is a 'all or nothing' effect, but that's for
psychological reasons, and it may be working against them at this point. The
people willing to put 7 million toward the cause probably still care, and will
find other ways to donate it.

Please donate, and consider checking "I want my donation to be used to support
MAYDAY.US, even if the goal has not been met by July 4th." This is one of
those causes that seems fundamentally worth while to me, and your donation
will mean even more if they come up short, because it will give them funds to
keep fighting.

You should donate now.
[https://pledge.mayday.us/pledge](https://pledge.mayday.us/pledge)

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pmorici
Does anyone know what the significance of the $5 million goal is? Did they
look at the political landscape and decide that was how much money they needed
to make an impact or is that just the amount they thought they could raise?

~~~
_up
If you click the mayday button you get this page:

[https://mayday.us/](https://mayday.us/)

and this setence: "For 2014, our goal is $12 million. With that money, we will
make fundamental reform the key issue in five congressional races. And win."

Also they raised 1 Mio before and everything gets doubled by individual
donnors.

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julie1
What is amazing me is all the ignorance that is so boldly expressed by lessig:
a democracy is not a republic since republic was designed to kill the
democracy.

The biggest argument against republic being a possible implementation of
democracy was made centuries ago by Pericles. He stated that any system
favouring money will end in ploutocracy (having only the richer's interests
being represented). Republic filter's out a lot of people from the game of
being eligible. It selects on a random criteria that will always end to be
money at the end.

Republic whatever its implementation can be always will result in a feedback
loop based on resources: money, media time, «fame», knwoledge, wisdom... As a
result whatever the rule you make it will always end up favouring in the
representation the guys with money. (you need exposure of your argument to
win, that always ends up in making a 1:1:1 relation of
exposure=money=probability of winning)

Democracy's goal however is to have all the population being represented. So
as you can see these 2 systems are de facto mutually exclusive.

The big question is «are the human naturally bad?» If answer is yes: you
choose republic to ensure only a subset of «capable citizens» are elected, but
in the process you will mathematically converge towards a ploutocracy that
will favor the more powerful/rich. Else, if all citizen are considered equally
«capable» you can pick up any random citizen for forming a government. Hence
living in a republic is NOT possibly living in a democracy.

Republic is just an aristocracy: it ensures the representant of the people are
selected in a small subset of the population that tends to have more
patrimonial. subset of the population that will tend to pass law to ensure the
conservatism in the society so that their money is secured.

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lifeisstillgood
Am I being a little bit dumb - their goal is to demonstrate how corrosive
money is in "buying" Congressional races by pouring money into congressional
races to buy the race to make their point?

I seem to be going round again

~~~
lilsunnybee
Not quite. They're raising campaign money to try and influence five upcoming
congressional elections in favor of campaign finance reform. To do that, I
imagine they'll run ads in key districts in support of whichever candidate or
another will agree to support and advance reform, or at least to unseat an
incumbent who's been historically against reform. It's definitely ironic! They
even admit as much towards the bottom of the main page; it's just the way
politics are in the US raising and spending this much money is pretty much a
necessity for the goals they have.

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Nemcue
Quite depressing how they don't seem to be able to reach their goal. I would
donate in a heart beat, but I'm not a US citizen.

Unclear why you (US citizens) aren't all over this stuff.

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jasonhn9999
Can this reach a tipping point? HN may help get it there.

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jackgavigan
The American Spring?

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aragot
This is an interesting question. I'm located in Europe so I can't hear what
the crowd is humbling.

-Do you think there is enough collective desire for a particular change? It's often hard to rally everyone for a "spring".

-Do you think this action has the power to overturn any decision making in the US democracy?

~~~
pstop
I doubt it, Canadian here so I can't speak to the mumblings. All I can off is
anecdotal information from talking to Americans when I'm down there, and the
middle class don't understand how poor they are in America compared to their
wealthy. They seem to feel that they're almost wealthy, but what they don't
realize is that the difference between the middle and lower classes is a
rounding error compared to the wealth of the upper class. They also don't
realize that a middle class Canadian has more disposable income than their
southern equivalent, and yet Americans receives almost none of the free health
care or other social safety nets. As a man whose had 6 major surgeries, two
while unemployed after Dell closed up shop in Edmonton, I can say that without
that safety net, I may very well have ended up on the street. Which you don't
see a lot of here.

~~~
RichardFord
_All I can off is anecdotal information from talking to Americans when I 'm
down there, and the middle class don't understand how poor they are in America
compared to their wealthy. They seem to feel that they're almost wealthy, but
what they don't realize is that the difference between the middle and lower
classes is a rounding error compared to the wealth of the upper class._

That's not anecdotal. You're playing mind reader to fit your own political
agenda. That's pretty rude to your friends....if even that's true.

 _They also don 't realize that a middle class Canadian has more disposable
income than their southern equivalent, and yet Americans receives almost none
of the free health care or other social safety nets_

And once again, a Canadian doesn't understand that health care isn't free no
matter how many times they say it.

~~~
pstop
Actually Richard, that's conversation. Americans who do not pursue more
detailed of factual news get fed a lot of bullshit.

And when we're talking about disposable income, that means the income after
taxes, comparable to Americans after taxes, the health care is FREE because it
was covered in the taxes before to make the calculation. We also call it free,
because it is free to use the services, not free of cost.

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whitej125
"Then we got the $1 Million matched by a group of donors who, unlike most
political donors, would like to level the playing field, even if it means
seeing their influence decreased."

... and with that I lose my trust in this PAC. Human nature has a pull towards
being self-serving and this nature is amplified when large sums of wealth are
on the line.

~~~
zedadex
So what? They're not shareholders, they're donors.

Once money is donated to a Super PAC, it's the PAC's money to do with as they
see fit. "PACs may make unlimited expenditures independently of a candidate or
political party." Short of the agreement to match funds having extra
stipulations (or Lessig putting those wealthy benefactors in charge of the
PAC) there is nothing they can do about how the money gets spent.

~~~
esbonsa
Couldn't the donors agree to donate more if the PAC spends the already donated
money in a certain way?

~~~
tinco
They could, but this PAC has only one goal, so the money either gets spend
towards that goal or not. The donors would have to spend so much that everyone
in the PAC organisation switches sides and goes for political ambition
instead.

