Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [180]
14. Weber and Perry, Unfounded Fears, 59–60.
15. The argument for the power of Congress to control a convention was laid out fully more than fifty years ago by Cyril Brickfield, an attorney working for the House Committee on the Judiciary. After an exhaustive analysis of the history of constitutional conventions, Brickfield concludes that a convention exercises its will “within the framework set by the congressional act calling it into being.” Cyril F. Brickfield, “Problems Relating to a Federal Constitutional Convention,” Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives (July 1, 1957), 18. “A convention,” Brickfield writes, “is an instrument of government and acts properly only when it stays within the orbit of its powers.” “[T]o act validly,” it would “have to stay within the designated limits of the congressional act which called it into being” (Ibid., 18). That conclusion is only buttressed by the express statement of the Necessary and Proper Clause (Ibid., 19).
16. Constitutional Convention Implementation Act of 1985, Senate Bill 40, 99th Cong. 1st Sess. (1985).
17. Senate Bill 40, §7(a).
18. Walter E. Dellinger, “The Recurring Question of the ‘Limited’ Constitutional Convention,” Yale Law Journal 88 (1979): 1623, 1633.
19. This was the basis for Judge John A. Jameson’s conclusion in 1867 that conventions could be limited. See Weber and Perry, Unfounded Fears, 60.
20. Lash, “Rejecting Conventional Wisdom,” 197, 213.
21. Indeed, some members thought even talking about proposals beyond amending the articles of convention “must end in the dissolution of the powers” of the convention. Weber and Perry, Unfounded Fears, 23–24.
22. Ibid., 26.
23. Ibid., 107–8.
24. Hacker and Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics, 109.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. See, for example, James S. Fishkin, The Voice of the People (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995). For a related device, see Mark E. Warren, “Two Trust-Based Uses of Minipublics in Democracy,” American Political Science Association meeting (Sept. 2009).
28. “Poll Finds Only 33% Can Identify Bill of Rights,” New York Times, Dec. 15, 1991, A33. See also Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Well Known: Twitter; Little Known: John Roberts” (2010), available at link #231.
Conclusion
1. Makinson, “Speaking Freely,” 153.
2. “The 400 Richest Americans 2009,” available at link #232.
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Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
Preface
Introduction
PART I: The Nature of this Disease
1. Good Souls, Corrupted
2. Good Questions, Raised
3. 1 + 1 =
PART II: Tells
4. Why Don’t We Have Free Markets?
5. Why Don’t We Have Efficient Markets?
6. Why Don’t We Have Successful Schools?
7. Why Isn’t Our Financial System Safe?
Where Were the Regulators?
8. What the “Tells” Tell Us
PART III: Beyond Suspicion: Congress’s Corruption
9. Why So Damn Much Money
Demand for Campaign Cash
Supply of Campaign Cash: Substance
Supply of Campaign Cash: New Norms
Supply of Campaign Cash: New Suppliers
Economies, Gift and Otherwise
10. What So Damn Much Money Does
A Baseline of Independence
Deviations from a Baseline
0. It Matters Not at All
1. Distraction