Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [148]
The understanding that will grow from this grass-roots effort must then manifest itself in specific organizations driving for specific reforms. I’ve described my own preferred reform. But the most prominent recent example of reform like this was the effort to enact the Fair Elections Now Act. PublicCitizen.org, PublicCampaign.org, and CommonCause.org were the most engaged and effective organizations pushing to enact that act. They continue to push politicians to sign the Voters First Pledge at VotersFirstPledge.org.
These groups have inspired a new organization, which launched in the summer of 2011. The Fund for the Republic (FundfortheRepublic.org) promises to gather a politically diverse mix of rich people who commit to spending a great deal of their wealth to reform this system. Of all the organizational developments that have happened, this is among the most promising, as the Fund for the Republic is led by one of the very best organizers in this field, and has the potential to rally a great deal of support.
The second most important thing you can do is to demand that candidates for Congresss take a pledge to support small-dollar-funded campaigns. Whenever they speak publicly, get this question asked. Only by making this issue a constant focus of campaigns will we get enough representatives to commit to doing something about it. Let there never be another public meeting of a congressman or a candidate for Congress without this question asked, and asked again. And when it is asked, record it and post it on YouTube or blip.tv or Vimeo, and point us and others to the response.
For the Internet is the only tool we can rely upon just now. For at least the next five years, it will be the one tool that gives grass-roots movements an edge. You can be confident that this medium, too, will evolve. That soon it will feel as professional as magazine ads or television commercials. But for now there is enormous credibility that comes from authentic engagement. We can build that engagement, one click at a time.
There is also important work to do now to support the idea of a convention. Most important immediately is to push for mock conventions. You can find out how to support a mock convention at CallAConvention.org. These mock conventions, I believe, will begin to show Americans that we’re not so dumb. That, in fact, the work we do as amateurs to reform this democracy is much better than the work the professionals do. If there were five hundred mock conventions in the next four years, there would be a strong national movement to support a constitutional convention. In the end, I confess, this may be the only real path to reform. We should educate the people to practice it well.
Finally, there is critical work to be done now to build understanding across the insane political divide that defines politics in America today. There are entities whose business model depends upon dividing us: Fox News, MSNBC, the Tea Party, BoldProgressives.org. But the souls who are fans of each of these extraordinary institutions must begin to see that we are more than these institutions allow us to be. However far from my views a member of the Tea Party is, we still agree about certain fundamentals: that it is a republic we have inherited; that it ought to be responsive to “the People alone”; that this one is not.
This isn’t just a hypothesis for me. I’ve seen it firsthand. I stood in the middle of a national Tea Party convention. I recognized the people around me. They may not have agreed with me about gay rights. I don’t know if they did, for their convention was not focused on that kind of issue. We certainly didn’t agree about taxes or the need to “end government regulation.” But we were united in the view that this republic can do better.
We need to remember how