The Launch of the Mayday Citizens' SuperPAC

http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/84419344732/the-launch-of-the-mayday-citizens-superpac

by famousactress • 12 years ago

134 97 12 years ago

lessig.tumblr.com

puppetmaster3• 12 years ago

Ha, ha. I too will throw stones into the ocean to get less water.

Say hello to trillions of $.

Splendor• 12 years ago

Direct link: http://mayone.us/

llamataboot2• 12 years ago

This link just redirects to mayone.us/countdown/ for me now which has nothing on it except for a signup form...

llamataboot2• 12 years ago

fixed now

r00fus• 12 years ago

I hope they have some big names lined up to launch their "moonshot".

cypherpunks01• 12 years ago

Lessig's 2011 book "Republic, Lost" is his first foray into the world of writing about politics. It's a fairly shocking read, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm excited that he's partnering with a lot of great people to try and make campaign finance reform a reality.

higherpurpose2• 12 years ago

His 1h talk about the contents of the book:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc

higherpurpose2• 12 years ago

Money in politics is by far the biggest political issue, I'd say. It's the root cause of most evil in Congress. It's also the reason why Congress has so low approval rating (because they aren't listening to the People, but their few donors), and why they are so useless in terms of collaborating with each other, too.

How can they collaborate for the "good of the people", when they come from a position of having to pass new legislation to protect the interests of their donors one way or another. When you look at it from this point of view, you realize why so many refuse to compromise on their positions. Maybe they could compromise on ideology a bit, especially if some solution seems to be getting the consensus approval, but it's a lot harder to compromise on what your donors want, and you have to deliver on their wishes if you want to keep the money coming to your re-election.

jws2• 12 years ago

Sounds like they are testing the fund raising mechanism.

The first goal is $1M in 30 days, the second is $5M in 30 more days. In both cases the funds will be matched, so they already have $6M near hand, and realistically there isn't that much more you can do with $12M that you can't do with $6M.

I suspect May is to get the first little news articles in the press (Kickstarter meets Elections, underdog to use super pac against super pacs). The June goal is for the follow up articles that should get more widespread coverage.

I'm all for putting campaign finance reform at the front of 2014 and 2016. I'm in.

###ALERT### Check for SSL before donating. As of now the page is not secured.

Edit: Broken autofill on the donation page? Come on, make it easy. I had to type characters and access my memory to make this happen instead of just clicking.

gavinpc• 12 years ago

Also, it is just me or is the donation page using HTTP instead of HTTPS?

Maybe naive, but that's a showstopper for me.

jws2• 12 years ago

You are right! Hope no one was listening when I made my donation.

If you try to use SSL you will find a certificate mismatch with the host as well.

Ok. Don't donate, put a reminder in your planner to come back and try to change the world next week.

DEinspanjer5• 12 years ago

Yeah, I was going to donate but stopped as soon as I realized that (Thanks LastPass for warning me before auto-filling).

I submitted a comment on their feedback form letting them know, but I'm very surprised that Stripe would be involved and not help them avoid such a significant goof-up.

scottlinux• 12 years ago

Eek - not naive. This is taking credit card information over HTTP (form submit is over HTTP) all on a Wordpress site via a Wordpress cart plugin.

notme_2• 12 years ago

http://mayone.us/distribution-plan/ " What payment processor do you use? Are my money and information safe?

We have decided upon using Stripe as our payment processor. Stripe has offered us a very competitive rate (for which we thank them), and Stripe is compliant with PCI requirements and no sensitive data hits our servers. When you enter in your credit card information, it is not stored on the mayone.us site and goes directly to Stripe via the Stripe.js API.

Or in short: Yes, your money and info are safe. "

justindz3• 12 years ago

Lawrence and crew just responded to my tweet on this. They use Stripe, which is encrypted. The SSL certs for the page that is unencrypted will be up later today.

https://twitter.com/Boyko4TX/status/461902353105317891

EDIT: forgot to link the tweet.

jhspaybar• 12 years ago

Alternate Headline: Man vows to get money out of politics by throwing more money into politics

One thing I really don't understand about this movement to get money out of politics is what the alternative is? No money in politics? Well clearly someone has to put money into politics or you'd never see signs up, you wouldn't see commercials, politicians wouldn't have websites to post their platforms on, etc.

It seems to me like what people actually want is better politicians and the influence of money is the current reason to see politicians as poor. People have always hated politicians though, didn't we have Nixon before this big money kick? What about Herbert Hoover? Surely he'd be accused of some corporatist agenda today for his blunders.

It seems to me if you don't like how politicians behave and are influenced that the solution is to reduce their power and influence. If, and it's a big if, money is the problem, the money will stop flowing if the benefit of spending it drops. The larger government gets, the more power we give our politicians, and the more beneficial spending that money becomes. Remove the incentives and this problem will fix itself. That probably means many more complaints about why we don't have specific social programs, research programs, defense budget and whatever else we spend money on, but it'll fix the issue of the influence of money.

SideburnsOfDoom• 12 years ago

Calling Lawrence Lessig "man", implying "some random guy" sells him very short. He has stature and form in this field. hint: try google and wikipedia

acgourley• 12 years ago

One popular alternative is to have $X campaign funds provided by the government to candidates with $Y levels of popular support.

ja30278• 12 years ago

Begging the question of how candidates achieve the Y level of support. Either they are already well known figures (actors, athletes, etc), or they have to spend money to make themselves known.

humanrebar9• 12 years ago

And you restrict political speech to campaigns only? How? Is that something we want to do?

Can corporations run ads to support a candidate? If not, what's the difference between that and a New York Times (Inc.) editorial?

netcan• 12 years ago

"Money in Politics" is a pretty general concept. But if you break it down into some important components like "campaign funding" you can find solutions.

First of all, who says politicians need to be running expensive advertising campaigns? There are plenty of "pull" channels that don't cost anything. There's not much of a benefit to democracy for politicians to be buying TV airtime and putting up signs everywhere. Presumably people want to hear what a Presidential candidate has to say.

Second, as long as budgets are small it shouldn't be a problem to fund it from any number of sources. Some countries have system for using public money. You could limit presidential campaigns to $1m from deposits totaling no more that $100-$1000.

This isn't even a hard problem.

slantedview5• 12 years ago

This isn't even a hard problem.

The solution isn't hard, but getting there is very hard indeed. The system is entrenched.

rayiner2• 12 years ago

This is admirable, but I don't think the rhetoric is realistic or effective. "Government has failed us. More than 90% of Americans link that failure to the influence of money in politics."

Most Americans also think we spend 10x as much money on foreign aid than we do. The cause of the current economic malaise is a factual issue, not a matter of public opinion.

I have a sincere question for the people who support Lessig's statement quoted above: how can America's current woes not be easily explained by deindustrialization and automation reducing the need for labor, thus putting labor in a disadvantageous position relative to capital?

I go into CVS or Wal-Mart, and see everyone using automated checkout machines with a few cashiers hanging around in case anything goes wrong. Ten years ago, those didn't exist, and there would be a long row of cashiers. Is campaign finance really responsible for the woes of the middle and lower class, or is it technology (and other factors that make Americans of average skill more fungible)?

I wonder if the focus on campaign financing doesn't mistake correlation for causation. I think people mistake the degree to political decisions are caused by the money, rather than the preferences being communicated through the money. For example, if you're a big corporation with hundreds of employees in a Congressman's district, you might advertise in support of him, to communicate the message that raising taxes will lead to reduced employment. What causes that Congressman to vote against raising taxes? The money that was spent, or the message that was communicated with that money?

I guess the bottom line is that rich people and corporations don't need to bribe politicians. In the modern economy, where they can replace most workers with machines or outsource most work to China, or even renounce their citizenship and live as an expatriate in Hong Kong, they have all the leverage. They use the money to communicate their preferences to politicians afraid of contravening those preferences.

scep12• 12 years ago

Is technology really responsible for the woes of the middle and lower class, or is it the discretion of corporations that, after having saved capital with technology, choose to spend their profits elsewhere?

humanrebar9• 12 years ago

Given the new facts on the ground about the relative strengths of capital and labor, a rethinking of the government-imposed incentive structure is in order. In general, we tax labor at a much higher rate than returns on investments.

My preferred solution would be to stop taxing good things (income and investment) and start taxing not-so-good things (luxuries, frivolities, dangerous but legal products, etc.).

nickff2• 12 years ago

ROI is taxed at about the same rate as labor, if you count corporate income taxes and capital gains or dividend taxes (depending on the investment). Labor is only taxed once, as it is a corporate expense.

jackowayed• 12 years ago

One issue with that is that it gives government incentives to keep people in their vices. As an imperfect example, police departments that plan on funding a significant part of their budget from speed tickets aren't encouraged to educate people against speeding or fix unreasonable speed limits.

It's also not that stable of a form of government revenue. Vices tend to be inelastic, but luxury spending will often drop precipitously in a downturn.

sp3324• 12 years ago

Since labor is the majority of the voting population, the government should mainly be looking out for the interests of labor. But it has consistently put the interests of a few rich people over the needs of the rest of the people. Specifically, money buys elections.

humanrebar9• 12 years ago

Labor for labor's sake isn't good. Investing in new ideas is good. Replacing mind-numbing or back-breaking work with cheaper alternatives is nearly always a good thing. Likewise, investing in new ideas should be encouraged.

If the problem is that people don't have enough to live on, attack that problem (I like earned income tax credits). Don't make new ones by discouraging progress.

selmnoo• 12 years ago

The cause of the current economic malaise is a factual issue, not a matter of public opinion.

It also has to do with the popular feeling that the rich got rich at the expense of their labor and sweat (and hey, it's the truth - it's this way thanks to modern day rentier capitalism). I have this theory that if equality in wealth and income got slightly more even across the board - even if there was no marked improvement in quality of life, people would feel better -- they wouldn't feel powerless, they wouldn't feel they lost the game because it was rigged.

nickff2• 12 years ago

"if equality in wealth and income got slightly more even throughout the board - even if there was no marked improvement in quality of life, people would feel better"

It has been demonstrated that people feel better if they are closer to the top, even if it means impoverishing everyone.[1][2] I do not think this is the type of base urge which people should use the power of the government to indulge in.

[1] http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic212792.files/Indi...

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3315638/Rela...

ddlatham2• 12 years ago

I think you can definitely debate whether the Congress has done a good job addressing economic inequality and malaise. But Lessig's point is about more than that. It's that because Congress has become so dependent on campaign funds from a tiny portion they have become very unresponsive and unrepresentative to the interests they should be. In the video he mentions infrastructure, education, health care, climate change, the tax system. If they're spending half their time on the phone dialing for dollars, that is going to skew their interest and their votes.

I pledged.

humanrebar9• 12 years ago

It's that because Congress has become so dependent on campaign funds from a tiny portion they have become very unresponsive and unrepresentative to the interests they should be.

I think people get who they vote for. It's not like there's an exchange where you can literally buy votes for dollars.

I'm more upset with the electorate for having under-informed or unexamined political opinions.

I think the first step is for Americans to find a way to disagree about politics in a congenial way. As long as it's rude to talk about politics, people will continue to get their information from ads, talk radio, yard signs, comedy shows, and hack blogs.

slantedview5• 12 years ago

I'd argue that Congress has not done a good job of anything (at least not anything that the majority of Americans would care about) because our motivations are not aligned. That's the point of this campaign - to remove the motivation for Congress to act in ways that our not in the best interest of the general public, by removing the financial incentives for them to do so.

This TED talk from Lessig gives more background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g

sebular• 12 years ago

This Mayday idea and video really have nothing to do with what you're talking about.

The focus of this video isn't the bad economy, it's the obstruction of democracy in our system of government. This is the Princeton study to which he's referring, and which likely played a role in inspiring this campaign:

http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materi...

The results of the study can be summarized as "because of the role of money in politics, we are living in an oligarchy, not a democracy."

Therefore, this campaign has nothing to do with "where did the jobs go" and everything to do with how our system of government is heavily distorted in favor of the ultra-rich, rather than being reflective of popular opinion.

I'll give you that many people would probably link our current economic problems to this failure of our government, but the campaign isn't saying that they're the same thing.

How this point went sailing over your head and apparently the heads of everybody who upvoted your comment is somewhat baffling.

rdl3• 12 years ago

I don't think de-industrialization took us to war in Iraq (and fucked up a war in Afghanistan), nor did it push through corn ethanol subsidies for years, nor did it nearly take us to war in Syria, nor did it cause hypertrophy of the national security state (especially post 9/11 NSA and "killer" form of the CIA).

iandanforth2• 12 years ago

Because this is HN I can say "It's both!" and, hopefully, people won't bat an eye at that.

But let's talk about where you're spot on. Lessig sucks at rhetoric. Most liberals do. It's the one point where I feel shame at being a liberal.

If you take a look at his blog post, it's all about money. The only words that talk about the problem are "fundamental change." And while "change" can work as a rhetorical grounding, it is overplayed, and he's not using it well.

No he needs to demonize the opposition and create a sense of unity in his community of supporters. To one degree or another this is how all political change happens.

Here's what I'd do.

Buying our Freedom.

Abraham Lincoln, when faced with the impossible evil of Slavery, sought not war, but peace. He sought to buy the freedom of slaves, to pay fair for the freedom of men. Today we are faced with the equally impossible evil of democracy bought and sold in the halls of washington. Corporations hold enslaved our senators and congressmen and they do it through money. Campaign contributions, superpacs, the corruption of greed grips our government, and government for the people has become degrading servitude to big money.

Lincoln and the good people who believed in freedom and unity for this country were eventually forced into war, but first there was the attempt at reason, at working with those who purchased and survived on evil. Today we are on the same path. The evil of money entwined with politics cannot stand. It divides this nation into have's and have nots. It deprives the average man of his vote and gives it to the rich man. History will judge the evil of this time as a sad chapter in American history, just as we judge the period of slavery, but before History can pass judgment we must act.

Today we will attempt reason, and the language the corrupt understand. We will raise money. We will spend money. And we will do this in defense of democracy, not to control it, but to free it, and give it back to the people.

The men and women in washington do not want to be slaves to big money. No one does. But they have no champions, they have no defense. We will be their champions and we will rise up to protect them. We will raise money, and we spend money as a hammer large enough to smash their chains.

In the next month we will raise such money and spend such money as to show "big" money where power in America really lies. It is in the hands of the people, and the hands of the people are reaching out to take their government back.

In one month we will raise $1 million dollars. Donate now to show them. In 5 months we will raise $5 million dollars. Donate now to free our democracy. And in two years we will raise an army of dollars such that Congress can once and for all throw off its chains. We will buy our freedom, we will have our freedom, or, if forced to it by greed of rich men, we will fight.

Donate now.

rdl3• 12 years ago

The other route I'd go is more libertarian (not not particularly partisan) -- "commerce is too important to allow it to get corrupted by politics" level-playing-field of American myth, and talk about the arms race where once one business interest resorts to seeking political influence for business advantage, all of them have to, even if they don't want to individually.

Then maybe temper that with something about how people need to be able to stand for their own moral compass/conscience on issues of politics, and only by keeping huge and loud monetary interests out can we hear their individual voices.

AnthonyMouse2• 12 years ago

Is campaign finance really responsible for the woes of the middle and lower class, or is it technology (and other factors that make Americans of average skill more fungible)?

If you're looking for but-for causation then they're obviously both responsible, as is the capitalist economic model, world geography and natural resource distribution, biological evolution, etc. Which is why that isn't an interesting question.

The better question is, would fixing campaign finance improve the situation? Which it probably would. For example, there is no rational reason why we shouldn't spend less on defense and more on non-fossil energy research grants, but the campaign finance related reasons are so obvious they don't even need to be described.

What causes that Congressman to vote against raising taxes? The money that was spent, or the message that was communicated with that money?

The flaw in this logic is it assumes that ability to contribute meaningful amounts to a friendly politician correlates strongly with the objective merit of the politician's policy positions.

rayiner2• 12 years ago

For example, there is no rational reason why we shouldn't spend less on defense and more on non-fossil energy research grants, but the campaign finance related reasons are so obvious they don't even need to be described.

I strongly disagree. I support defense spending for a number of reasons: 1) I don't think Americans really want to live in a world where America doesn't have an overwhelming military advantage over everyone else; 2) Historically, defense spending has been the core of our public R&D spending; 3) Defense spending creates jobs in the U.S. that are difficult to outsource.

I think these are "rational" reasons.

The flaw in this logic is it assumes that ability to contribute meaningful amounts to a friendly politician correlates strongly with the objective merit of the politician's policy positions.

No, it doesn't assume that at all. Go back to the defense spending example above. Would it be objectively meritorious to spend less on defense and more on alternative energy? Maybe. Would it be politically advantageous to spend less on defense and more on alternative energy? Not if you're a politician in Maryland or Georgia or Texas or Alabama whose constituents depend on the jobs created by that spending.

The point I'm trying to make is that people interpret contributions as rich people using money as leverage, when in fact they are often rich people using money to remind politicians they have leverage. The Senator from Georgia doesn't vote in favor of more defense spending because Lockheed-Martin's CEO made a big donation. The Senator from Georgia votes in favor of more defense spending because Lockheed-Martin CEO reminded him, using donations and lobbying, that he employs thousands of middle class people in his state.

bhelx4• 12 years ago

Do they want me to put my credit card and personal information in an insecure form? I'm trying to figure out if this form posts to a secure endpoint. I don't think it does.

notme_2• 12 years ago

http://mayone.us/distribution-plan/

" What payment processor do you use? Are my money and information safe?

Or in short: Yes, your money and info are safe. "

bhelx4• 12 years ago

Yeah I read that. But it's strange, when I enter in information and hit "Pledge" it posts the fields to another insecure endpoint:

http://mayone.us/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

Maybe I am missing something about how stripe works?

namuorg2• 12 years ago

PSA: You should wait to donate as your credit card information will be relayed unencrypted over HTTP on their donation page (http://mayone.us/fec_compliance/).

I'm hoping they'll fix this soon.

EDIT: They've added SSL, so go ahead and pledge!

bhelx4• 12 years ago

They added SSL but it appears they are still making some kind of mistake. They claim to be using stripe.js (edit: http://mayone.us/distribution-plan/) which, as far as i know, creates a token so you don't have to send the credit card information over to your server protecting you from liability. It seems like they have still implemented it incorrectly. If you click "Pledge" it still sends the raw (albeit now encrypted) information to their wordpress server.

humanrebar9• 12 years ago

As long as there are incentives to manipulate the political process, there will be money in politics, whether in the open or under the table. Money in politics has been a problem as long as there has been money and politics.

If this Superpac is successful(1), it will only prove that throwing money at the right problem in the right way actually works.

1) Given that the major changes have lately been Supreme Court decisions, this may actually require an amendment to the Constitution, so I am extremely skeptical that success is possible.

protomyth• 12 years ago

Really, the big money corruption is the revolving door between lobbyists and politicians / staffers. Lobby to stop politicians / staffers from becoming lobbyists or accepting jobs with companies that contracted with the government for 5 years after they leave their position will do more to take the money out of politics than this does.

seivan• 12 years ago

What happens if you get backstabbed by these politicians? They tend to do that

denom• 12 years ago

It's interesting that this is coming at the same time as the push for a campaign finance amendment to the US Constitution.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/04/30/john-paul-...

It's plausible $1-10 million could sway a few votes in the Senate if an amendment came to a vote.

cwal37• 12 years ago

I put together a little gif a few years ago (post Citizens United) to show some potential paths to anonymity for money in politics. I should really update it with dollar figures and some more detail, but I think it roughly gets the point across.

http://i.imgur.com/Hjp1b.gif

humanrebar9• 12 years ago

Why shouldn't foreign nationals be able to make statements about U.S. political candidates?

ProAm• 12 years ago

He wants to "elect a large enough roster of congressmen and senators that they can pass meaningful campaign finance reform". Sounds like asking a wolf to feed on itself, I don't see this happening.

jpadkins• 12 years ago

campaign money is such a narrow factor in elections. While I think these efforts are well intentioned, they will not be effective.

Billionaires buy media companies that lose money (Jeff Bezos is just the latest one). why? because they want to influence culture/elections/policy. The media has way more influence in elections than crappy ads. But I don't people running around talking about the 0.1% controlling the media in America or doing anything to address that.

Here is the problem: Most voters are dumb / don't care. Rich people can spend money to influence dumb, apathetic people.

Solve that problem and you can get money out of US politics. Focusing on campaign money / lobbyist jobs is just a microcosm of the problem, and will only result in the money being moved to other ways of influencing elections/policy (whack-a-mole).

Show me a solution that prevents rich people from creating the stage for Bill O'Reilly and Rachel Madow.

rdl3• 12 years ago

The irony of raising money for a SuperPAC to end SuperPACs...

Aloha• 12 years ago

I might be alone in this sentiment, but..

I dont have a problem with unlimited money in politics so long as there is daylight - If you want to spend money performing what amounts to electioneering, I think your name should go public with the amount of your donation.

Daylight by far is the best nostrum for corruption.

dang• 12 years ago

We changed the url from http://boingboing.net/2014/05/01/mayday-larry-lessig-launche....

tokenadult• 12 years ago

I decided to do a site-restricted Google search on Larry Lessig's tumblr to see if he has written recently on public choice theory.[1] There are no hits on his tumblr at all for "public choice," even though there are plenty of hits for his discussions of the influence of money on politics. I guess I went to a different law school, where we learned about public choice theory in a mandatory class in our first year.

It's not so easy to fix public policy just by making something illegal that people are strongly motivated to do--a proposition that HN participants understand very well when we talk about drug policy, for instance. To better control the influence of people with a lot of money on a political system that also governs people who don't have much money takes a lot more than this SuperPAC. I'm not sure that it even represents me.

[1] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21569692...

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/publicchoice.htm

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html

namuorg2• 12 years ago

I'm curious: Why was this post bumped off the front page so quickly?

At the time of this comment, this post has 105 points, 79 comments, and was submitted 2 hours ago. Despite having more points and being younger than many posts on the front page, this post is on the second page. Is it due to the fact that this post is political in nature?

I'm sure a lot of HNers who haven't been on the site in the past 2 hours would appreciate this submission, so it's unsettling to see that it's no longer on the front page.

slantedview5• 12 years ago

For some more background on Lessig and his focus on campaign finance, check out his TED talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g

avmich• 12 years ago

And that’s the leap: It is impossibly hard to imagine raising $1 million in 30 days, even as a contingent commitment (meaning, you only get charged if we hit the goal).

That's because America is a poor country, and doesn't really want democracy. Compare to Russia - no, compare to Moscow:

http://navalny.livejournal.com/845180.html

76 million (unrevocable) rubles in 2 months, with about 32 rubles per dollar exchange rate. Summer 2013, Moscow mayoral race. For the candidate opposing Putin regime.

canvia• 12 years ago

Has anyone ever done a statistical analysis of post voting patterns in political discussions to attempt to determine if any manipulation of the discourse might be occurring? Using non-public votes to determine comment rank seems like a ripe target for abuse since it can't be independently analyzed. I would love to see an outside audit of votes on a site like reddit to make sure there isn't corporate or political influence corrupting the exchange of ideas.

The Launch of the Mayday Citizens' SuperPAC

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