How About a New Kind of Politician?

Thirteen months before the 2016 presidential election, we’re already hearing about the candidates in the news every day.  Personally, I am tired of listening to the same batch of politicians debating virtually the same issues from the last election cycle.  In large part, this stems from the fact that I have a feeling of inevitability and a feeling that no matter how much we as young students participate in politics, come November next fall our voices won’t really matter because big money and massive campaign donations will ultimately determine the outcome of the election.  Many candidates – perhaps most notably Bernie Sanders – include campaign finance in part of their platform, but there is only one candidate who I believe could actually accomplish it.

Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and he is running exclusively on campaign finance reform.  He is running as what he calls a “referendum president,” a president who would go to the White House with one goal to accomplish, and once he achieved that goal he would resign and the vice president would resume the normal responsibilities as president.  Now, this is clearly unprecedented, but he is running because despite years of discussion and talk about campaign finance by politicians on both sides of the aisle, basically nothing has been accomplished.

Lessig started his run for president in August with a Kickstarter campaign.  He said that he would only run if the public showed enough support, and in less that 6 weeks he raised over a million dollars in individual, online donations.  As part of his referendum presidency, he is running on a single mandate, what he calls the Citizen Equality Act of 2017.  This act includes three specific pieces and the fact that he is running on just these issues will give him the authority and commitment he needs to get them passed in Congress.

He states it best himself, and here I quote from his website: “The Citizens Equality Act of 2017 is a package of reforms designed to restore citizen equality.  It guarantees the freedom to vote, ends partisan gerrymandering, and funds campaigns in a way that would give us a Congress free to lead.  Each part is drawn from existing proposals for fundamental reform. We are not reinventing the wheel.  And taken together, they would give us — finally — what we were promised: a government of, by, and for the people.”

(The specifics of this are laid out in much more detail on his website if you’re interested.)

To me, money in politics is the absolute biggest problem with our government, and judging from my conversations with those around me, it is for you too.  There is so much work to be done in this country, but right now we’re not in control of what’s happening in our government, and I don’t believe any other issue can be properly resolved until we take political influence out of the hands of corporations, lobbyists and billionaires and put it back into our hands.

Nearly every time I’ve brought up Lessig, the reaction is the same – “Wow, I completely agree we need to get money out of politics, but there is no way he could actually be elected.”  Imagine if we all supported the candidate we actually agreed with!  Furthermore, I believe he actually has a chance.  I think one of the appealing parts of this campaign is that it steers clear of specific, divisive political issues, focusing exclusively on these few issues.  Now, I’m not suggesting that this chance is anything more than slim at best, but I believe that more than a year before election day is the time for talking and discussing candidates, not deciding on them.  Right now I think we need to do a lot more talking about Lessig – such as letting him participate in the Democratic debates – and less deciding on Hillary or Bernie.