Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [139]
Yet both of these weaknesses may actually be strengths. Such a movement needs to live beneath the radar at first. Like the Internet itself, it needs to develop in a world where all the experts say that it’s impossible, so that those who understand the world only through the experts ignore it as it develops. Likewise, it needs to develop by exercising the civic power of ordinary citizens. We’ve seen people devote endless hours to a single person; we need the same devotion to an ideal, or a cause. The discipline of a campaign that needs to rely upon a million volunteers is precisely the discipline constitutional reform needs. And a convention, even an Article V convention, especially.
The campaign would need a common infrastructure—a platform upon which strategy and substance could be worked out. And more important, an infrastructure that would develop a campaign that could move from state to state, or from state to states, as states passed the resolution making the call.
That platform need not be heavily staffed. Indeed, it needs to grow with the discipline of our own revolutionaries: small, apparently disorganized citizens fighting for liberty. A general, a staff to support infrastructure, and a call for citizens to engage are everything the system needs.
That platform would prove itself as it targeted state legislatures, and delivered. With each victory, attention would grow. The list of supporters would become more engaged. That engagement would attract others. And if it could be kept authentic, removed from the control of either party in D.C., it might yet spark the inspiration such reform needs.
Indeed, if I were to design the movement, I would place at the top of its requirements that it be a citizens’ movement only. Of course we welcome the support of anyone—politicians, corporations, foreigners, even dolphins. But the work necessary to make this succeed must come from citizens alone. And more precisely, citizens who pledge that they are not seeking a role in Congress. Let no one doubt the integrity of those participating in this movement. Remove any question of ulterior motive.
As I’ve talked about this idea in literally hundreds of places around the country, the single most pressing objection is the fear of American ignorance—the belief that Americans are too ignorant to inform or direct a constitutional convention, and that therefore we should not give them the chance.
Americans are ignorant about politics and our government no doubt. Less than a third of us know that House members serve for two years, or that senators serve for six.24 Half of us believe foreign aid is one of the top two federal expenditures. It is actually about 1 percent of the budget.25 Six years after Newt Gingrich became Speaker, only 55 percent of us knew the Republicans were the majority party in the house, a rate just slightly better than the result if monkeys had chosen randomly.26
So, ignorant we are. But we’re not stupid. Indeed, for all the reasons this book has collected, remaining ignorant about politics and our government is a perfectly rational response to the government we have. The question isn’t what we know. The question is what we’re capable of knowing, and doing, if we have the right incentives, and the right opportunity.
Yet I’ve also come to see that there’s no arguing people out of their fear of this ignorance. The only opportunity is to show them something that convinces them of something different. So here’s the biggest gamble that I would place in this plan:
As we push for states to call for Article V conventions, we should simultaneously be convening shadow conventions in each of these states. These shadow conventions would not be casual or ad hoc. Instead, they would be built according to a common plan developed by the organizing platform for this movement. Think of it as a convention in a box, which would map how the convention