Lawrence Lessig's SALT talk: the new federal government corruption

Kevin Kelly provided a nice summary of Larry Lessig's recent SALT ( Seminar About Long-Term Thinking) talk. It was about corruption in the US congress.

Lessig said the type of corruption rampant in the US Congress is not the old type of bribery, where congressional representatives had safes in their offices to hold the cash they received for voting in certain directions. That is now illegal and eliminated. This new type of corruption is more subtle, indirect and harder to outlaw…. the real money to be made in Congress is the relative fortune to be made as a lobbyist after leaving office. The differential in wages between a staff member and a lobbyist has escalated a hundred fold in the past 40 years. Now 43% of staff go on to become lobbyists. The promise of a well-paying job working for corporate interests later is enough to warp voting now.

I'm not sure if Lessig talked about SOPA-shill Chris Dodd, but he's a prime example. Not only did Senator Dodd engage in old-school corruption by protecting sub-prime mortgage lender Countrywide Financial in exchange for special treatment by the crooked lender for his personal mortgages, he also landed a plum lobbyist job as Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America after promising he'd never become a lobbyist.

SALT talk by Lawrence Lessig: “How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It”

• [OldBrownSquirrel]

  The English language does not have words to describe the depths to which Dodd has descended.  To call him a whore would be an undue offense to sex workers, and I will not sully them with the comparison.  Indeed, it’s not that he’s sold his body; rather, he’s sold his soul.  He’s the Benedict Arnold of the First Amendment.  He’s cousin to Judas, brother to Faust, a protégé of the Mouth of Sauron.

• [Matt]

  I’d be happy for unlimited contributions to anyone at any time, as long as they were completely anonymous, so that the recipient didn’t know who was bribing him. I have no idea how that can be executed, however.

  • [Jim Saul]

    While that would seem possible at first blush, I’m afraid that the money would be anonymous only to everyone BUT the candidate and the donor.

    Oooohhh… unless politicians were isolated from contact while in office, like the monks in Anathem! Can you imagine the celebrations as the door is sealed closed on them?

    I’d be more sympathetic to the other direction, myself… absolute exposure of the financials of the campaign (including “independent” PACs), as well as the financial interests of the candidate. However, clearly that would discourage individuals from making even minor donations to causes that would be unpopular with their employers, clients, or churches.

    • [Gideon Jones]

      You know that that info (individual political donations to candidates) is already public, right?  The FEC tracks it, candidates have to disclose the info to them in regular statements, and it’s all available publicly at either the FEC’s website, or Opensecrets.  

      Corporations and a few other types of organizations are the only ones able to hide their donors and donations.  

      • [Jim Saul]

        OpenSecrets is a fantastic resource, an inspirational model of what I want to see more broadly, but they are only able to work with the information that is required to be publicly disclosed. “Leadership PAC” funds are just one way to get around that disclosure… my favorite recent one was the single-purpose corporation Mitt Romney supporter Cameron Casey created and dissolved in order to launder a $1 million donation:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Spann_LLC 

        • [Gideon Jones]

          Like I said, individual donations are open.  It’s just all this crazy crap we either got after Citizen’s United, or which was “rediscovered” afterwards that lets people hide this stuff.  

          If you’re a normal person, just sending in your $50 to someone you like, it’s all out in the public.  Completely fucked up system.

• [Kelvin Celsius]

  i attended the talk, and after the opening snark about choosing a title it was actually offensive to slowly realize how far from “a plan to stop it” Lessig would end up.  a constitutional amendment?  not addressed: how to fix a broken tool with a broken tool. he should have gotten mic checked.

  • [Gideon Jones]

    His entire last book was dedicated to that question – how you go about fixing a broken system with the same broken system.  

    I’m not sure I agree with his proposed solutions, and I especially don’t think his preferred solution (a constitutional convention) is all that likely to happen given the amount of non-electoral organizing it entails.  

    People are a lot more willing to sit around bitching about a problem than actually organizing around it.  Especially given both the left and far right’s aversion to leadership in their protest movements.  Witness your own use of the phrase “mic check”.

• [Jim Saul]

  Lessig’s appearance on the Daily Show last month was a nice summary of the similar issues, though there he’s covering mostly campaign money, not the regulatory capture achieved by the revolving door of lobbyist staffers.

  http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-december-13-2011-lawrence-lessig 

  His suggestions are certainly subject to the relentless complaints that they can be circumvented, but we have to start somewhere, and I think they would encourage more good people to run for office by removing some of the need for powerful patrons.

• [t3kna2007]

  > The English language does not have words to describe the depths to which Dodd has descended.

  Yeah, but they told him he could sit next to Angelina Jolie at the Academy Awards!  C’mon, man, Angelina Jolie! #sarc

• [jowlsey]

  A summary is nice, but I’d like to hear the whole thing.  I hope the post an mp3 of it soon.

• [lavardera]

  Unless somebody has a better idea, I think we should just run with this because otherwise nothing will ever change. So how do we start this moving without our valiant elected officials? Petition movements in each state? How many states can the citizens bring a ballot initiative to a vote?

• [evinmorris]

  The problem with Lessig’s proposed solution is that it turns the “fundraising for election” process (getting money to use in  influencing people’s voting behavior) into just another “election” .  

  If we all have the same $50/$100 to donate, then my $50 donation is just another “vote”.  The struggle then refocuses on how to persuade lots of contributors to give $50, and the “victory” will go to the person able to persuade the most $50 voters to do so.  

  How will he/she do this?  Largely by spending more $ to do so (or getting proxies to do so on his/her behalf).   The race for citizen contributions becomes just an “election before the election”, the process is made even dirtier, and the means of persuasion even more underhanded and sneaky. . .  

  This “solution” isn’t a solution, it’s just a compounding of the problem. . .

• [lesserlesserwashington]

  Real patriots go from being underpaid Hill staffers to being underpaid federal attorneys who read Boingboing and reddit and criticize the actions of DOJ and the Hill.  People like me.