Stanford law school professor, copyright critic and campaign-finance reform activist Lawrence Lessig is on a plane from San Francisco to Massachusetts right now. (It’s true!) But that hasn’t prevented him from weighing in on the major Supreme Court ruling today in the Citizens United vs. FEC case. The ruling lifts campaign spending limits on corporations and labor unions. Some see it as an end to unconstitutional restrictions on free speech. Others see it as a further corruption of the electoral system, where citizen power and influence diminishes in the face of increasing organizational and corporate spending. Lessig sent out a YouTube discussing the ruling before he boarded his plane.
We need to establish an alternative process for ensuring our democracy really works, says Lessig.
“Not the alternative that tries to silence any speaker but an alternative that allows us to believe once again that our government is guided by reason or judgment or even just the politics of the people in a district and not by the need to raise money.”
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