While speculation that Vice President Joe Biden might get in the race reaches a fever pitch, Harvard University law professor Lawrence Lessig of Cambridge, Mass. quietly entered the Democratic presidential race himself Sunday.
The law professor and internet activist stated Sunday that he is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, but he only wants to pass a single campaign finance reform law, and then resign.
“WE DID IT!!! ($1M in < 4 wks) Thank you all for your support. Now, let’s go #fixdemocracyfirst #getmoneyout,” Lessig tweeted Sunday. Lessig had set a fundraising goal of $1 million by Labor Day for himself to gauge interest in his bid. That goal was met earlier this weekend.
On ABC’s “This Week,” Lessig excoriated the “corrupt” status quo of the current political system.
“We have to find a way to elevate the debate to focus on the changes that would actually get us a government that could work again, that is not captured by the tiniest fraction of the 1 percent who fund campaigns,” Lessig said.
Lessig, 54, has been singly focused on the issue of campaign finance reform in recent years. He is the chairman of Mayday Political Action Committee, which focuses on the issue, and he seeks to pass the Citizen Equality Act, an omnibus action that Lessig says would satisfy his goals.
Lessig’s commitment to new campaign finance rules seems to be nonpartisan. He has even praised a man who could be his rival, should he win the Democratic nomination: Donald Trump.
“He surprised people … and I think the Democrats, when they talk about this issue, they surprise nobody,” Lessig said in an interview last month with National Journal. “People believe he is credible on this. … The press is constantly obsessing about the idea — how can people like Donald Trump when he has these horrendous views about immigrants and women, how can they love him? I think the answer is people are so desperate for someone they believe is actually independent that they’re willing to put up with the [other] views.”
Lessig was born in South Dakota, raised in Pennsylvania, and educated at Wharton, Cambridge, and Yale. He clerked for Judges Richard Posner and Antonin Scalia, and concedes that he was a conservative earlier in life. He has spent most of his career as an academic, but is also considered a prominent Internet activist on matters of intellectual property, the net neutrality debate, and of course, campaign finance regulation.
