Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [127]
The single most terrifying idea for an incumbent is a primary challenge. As I described in chapter 9, the vast majority of seats in Congress are safe seats. Safe seats mean the general election is just a coronation. And so, too, the primary: well-disciplined parties teach young and up-and-coming candidates not to rock the primary boat. Wait your turn, and you’ll get a turn. Step out of line, and a thin red or blue line will keep you out.
Peaceful terrorism would disturb this comfortable pattern. It would produce primary challenges. But not by other politicians. Instead, by citizen politicians: candidates who affirmatively state that their purpose is not to become a politician. Their purpose instead is to push an incumbent to do the right thing.
Now, that idea alone won’t go far. Local challenges by people who expect to draw 10 percent (if lucky) from an incumbent aren’t exactly newsworthy. But an interesting loophole in the Constitution as written does provide a very interesting news hook, and a chance to rally a much larger force.1
Here’s a quiz: What’s required to be elected to the House of Representatives? You’d think that one requirement is that you be a resident of the district from which you’re to be elected. In fact that is not true. All the Constitution requires is that at the time of the election, you “be an Inhabitant of that State in which [you] shall be chosen.” That means you could live in San Francisco, but run for Congress in LA. Or run in LA, and in San Francisco. And in Oakland and Sacramento and Eureka.
You get the idea. There’s nothing in the Constitution that forbids a single candidate from running in multiple districts at the same time. Of course, she couldn’t become the congresswoman from multiple districts. But her candidacy could be waged in multiple districts at the same time, all under a single, clear platform: that she (and the others who are doing the same) will remain in the race so long as the incumbent does not commit publicly to supporting citizen-owned elections.
To make this work, the supercandidate must be a certain kind of soul. She must be a prominent, well-liked leading citizen from the state who is, again, and this is important, not a politician. Indeed, the party organizing and supporting these peaceful terrorists must demand that the candidates affirm that they have no intention to run for office again for at least five years, except in this supercandidate role. To be credible, this must be seen as the act of a disinterested citizen whose only objective is to change the system for others. Not the objective of becoming a congressman or other politician. Like a juror called into service for a limited time, these supercandidates would be called into service for a limited time, with a promise to go home.
But if, across key states, this movement could organize a handful of prominent souls to join in this challenge candidacy—business-people, scientists, former presidents of universities, even lawyers—then the protest could begin to resonate. In the first round in 2012, in the early primaries, the campaign could target a handful of districts where incumbents had not committed to citizen-owned elections. Those candidates could all leverage their candidacy off of a common and free set of Internet resources. The districts would be selected on the basis of which were most likely to produce a result. Producing a result early on would feed more candidates in more districts later in the primaries. And then once the primaries were over, the campaign could shift to the general election: targeting seats that were not safe, where even a single point could flip the seat from one party to the other.
The advantage of this system is the advantage of all terrorism,