Design for democracy - pro bono?

I'm working on a short (like 2-minute) video that tries to make a CRITICALLY important legal point about SuperPACs. Essentially, the world thinks the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision necessarily protects SuperPACs. That view — now dominant in the law — is based on an obvious mistake. I think I've found a way to make that mistake obviously obvious. I need a really great designer to help make it compelling.

I've got an ugly version of the slide deck that would be the basis of the design. I'm looking for someone who can take that and render it compelling and beautiful.

I don't have a budget for this, and it won't be used except to build understanding. If you're willing to help pro bono (as I've been waging this legal fight for a decade!), I'd be grateful if you sent me an email at Lessig at gmail dot com, with a link to designs you're most proud of.

Thanks in advance.

Buddy Roemer, RIP

Very sad to hear that we lost Buddy Roemer today.

Buddy was a reformer Republican. In 2011, as a former congressperson and former governor (Lousiana), he determined to run for President, emphasizing the corruption of Congress, and the problem of money in politics. We needed, as he put it, a government “free to lead.” But we wouldn’t have that so long as politicians spent all their time raising money. As I described his campaign in Republic, Lost (2011):

Roemer has focused his campaign on a single issue: the role of money in politics. He has committed to taking no more than $100 from anyone. He will take no PAC contributions. He will disclose every contribution regardless of the amount to any organization that wants to audit. “Free to Lead” is the slogan of his campaign. And his promise is to leverage the mandate he would receive into a demand to change Congress.

In launching his campaign, Roemer embraced four principles that must guide any legislation designed to restore independence to Congress. As he described these principles in a lecture at Harvard:

First, no system for funding campaigns should try to silence anyone or any view. This was the kernel of truth in the Court’s Citizens United decision. The fact that it is a corporation that is speaking does not by its nature make the speech any less valuable or important to our system of democratic deliberation. We need to hear all sides, especially the sides we’re least likely to agree with.

Second, no system for funding campaigns should force any citizen to support political speech that he or she doesn’t believe in. Once a candidate is elected, of course, his or her salary is paid by the government. And I’m sure that all of you have, like I, cringed at the words of at least some of those whose salary we pay. But there’s a fundamental distinction between paying the salaries of government officials, and paying for the campaign of political candidates. Even if government money must be used to support such campaigns, we must assure that it is not used to advance ideas that are contrary to the taxpayer who is funding it.

Third, no bureaucrat in Washington should be in the business of deciding how much any campaign for Congress deserves to get. We can’t have a system where government decides the allowance that challengers to the government will get to wage their challenge. Instead, it is the people who should decide how much anyone should get to run his or her campaign.

And finally, any system must permit — indeed, encourageindividuals to give at least a small amount of their own money to support the campaigns that they believe in. If Barack Obama taught us anything, it was the extraordinary energy and importance that would come from getting millions to commit at least a small amount. Politics is not passive anymore. The Internet has made it possible for everyone to have skin in the game.

Four years later, of course, Donald Trump picked up on the corruption issue. “Drain the swamp,” he told us, and “Super PACs are a scam.” (Here’s a collection of his statements way back then.) But in 2012, the Republican Party was not ready for that message. It manipulated the debate rules to keep Buddy off stage. If he changed his principles, they told him, and accepted larger contributions, then maybe he could join the other Republicans. Translation: Give up on your principles, and then we’ll let you play.

When he was considering his run, Buddy came to visit with me to talk about ideas. He was earnest and ferociously committed. But what struck me most was his love. He had love for everyone you’d expect — his family, his friends, his country—but more than that, he had a love for the very process of bringing people to see the world as he did.

That love taught a generation what politics could be. And could be, I believe, still.

Hey journalists, here’s the question you need to be asking the insurrectionists.

https://lessig.medium.com/on-the-wrong-the-insurrectionists-committed-a-guide-for-journalists-e24d707624a0?sk=1e397cfa65d691d752dd1d7a053f215b

Oral Argument in PATRICK v. Alaska

Some thoughts on the oral argument in our case trying to uphold the regulation of SuperPACs.

https://lessig.medium.com/the-oral-argument-in-patrick-v-alaska-26acd6dea8f2?sk=a5237b6de34d946ad2bf6c79c64e96d6

DONE: Final words on the Cruz and Hawley outrage

On my Medium page: Here's the Friend Link.

MEDIUM: Why Senator Hawley's latest defense is just more offense.

MEDIUM: Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley's illegal objection

About my Medium posts

I am a huge supporter of Medium, because I am a huge supporter of the idea of Medium. 

Founded by a founder of Twitter to be a place where long-form thinking was possible, Medium has become a critical platform for spreading understanding in depth. I like it much more than an op-ed page in a major newspaper (since there’s no 800 word limit and it is more timely). I want to do everything I can to help it succeed.

Medium has now established a paid content section to its publication. That content is content recommended to its paid subscribers. I want my content to be easily available to both those paid supporters of Medium and anyone else. That want has led to this resolve:

I will publish my essays presumptively on Medium (sometimes elsewhere but I am exhausted by the submission process), thereby supporting the subscriber part of the platform (while earning the small bit that publishing earns me). But any article published in Medium will also be available here with a “friends link” — meaning a link that allows you to read the article whether or not you’re a paid subscriber to Medium. 

And all of my articles are CC-BY, meaning you’re free to take them and commercialize them however you want, so long as you credit me. 

On CTIA v. City of Berkeley

We filed our opposition to CTIA’s petition asking the Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit’s conclusion that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Berkeley’s health and safety warning about cell phones. Here’s a clue to why no court in this FOUR YEAR litigation has yet to agree with CTIA — it’s effectively the same warning that the FCC requires manufacturers to include in every cell phone manual, just applied to retailers, not manufacturers, and no one, ever, has challenged that “compelled speech” by the FCC, including CTIA. You can read the opposition here.

But here’s a pro-tip for anyone trying to understand what this case is about. The issue before the Court has nothing — let me repeat, NOTHING — to do with whether cell phones cause cancer or any other harm to individuals. The issue — and really, the only issue — is whether a local jurisdiction must survive intermediate First Amendment scrutiny before it may require a health and safety warning. 

That sounds a bit law-geek-like, but it is critically important. This is a classic example of what Elena Kagan was describing when she charged conservatives with “weaponizing” the First Amendment. Because the single and most obvious consequence of such a NEW rule would be exactly what conservatives want here — the end of the practical ability for local jurisdictions to regulate through mandatory warnings. This is, as we’ve said from the start of this case, the ghost of Lochner in the guise of the First Amendment. 

You may not like safety warnings. I share a skeptical view about the utility of many of them. But never in the Supreme Court’s history has it applied intermediate First Amendment review to a mandatory health and safety warning. That’s why, in the last case where conservatives were trying to weaponize the First Amendment in this way, Justice Thomas wrote that the Court did  “not question the legality of health and safety warnings long considered permissible.” National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, 138 S. Ct. 2361, 2376 (2018). Yet here is the CTIA asking the Court to create a new First Amendment barrier to something “long considered permissible.”

So if you’re thinking or writing about this case, please — at the very least —don’t become a tool of the CTIA publicity department. I’m happy to defend the substance of the Berkeley ordinance — which simply directs people to the manual if they want to avoid exceeding FCC RF exposure limits. But this cert petition raises an issue much much bigger than Berkeley’s ordinance. Focus on that forest, not on this tree.

Hey “anonymous” (where is trademark law when you need it?), f*ck you.

In my inbox today: 

First, re: the “attack will start permanently and will last for a long time”: Do I get to pick? I’ll take “for a long time” over “permanently”.

Second, hey #anonymous, these idiots are hurting the brand. (Raw source here)

Finally and really: how pathetic can you be? Slow down on the Twinkies and stop f*cking up the Internet. 

A tool to get your copyrights back

I was incredibly happy to read that Creative Commons and the Authors Alliance have released a tool (cool URL: rightsback.org) to enable authors to recover the rights they had transferred to someone else. This was a project started a decade ago. It was hard then. I am very proud they have delivered it now. 

Copyright is an incredibly interesting law of property, chock through with weird exceptions and protections. One of those protections is that a creator can get a second chance with his or her copyright. If you created something, and then transferred your copyright to someone else, even though the transfer might say “this is forever ...” you have the right to get it back. 

But (surprise! surprise!) it turns out it is INCREDIBLY difficult to exercise that right properly. And many creators find it just way too difficult (read: expensive) to exercise the right. 

The tool that CC/AA have created tries to make it as simple as possible. The tool walks you through the steps necessary to determine whether you have a right, and when you need to file. The tool doesn’t do the transfer, but it does help you see whether you are entitled, and if you are, it simplifies the process of making that happen. 

The purpose of copyright law is to help creators. You wouldn’t know that by looking at the way the law actually works. But where the law clearly benefits creators, we should do whatever we can to support it. 

Wonderful work by two great organizations. If it were my job to do so, I’d suggest you help support them either here (CC) or here (AA). But as I am just a fond supporter myself, I’ll leave that up to you. 

I DEMAND Bassel Khartabil's DATE OF DEATH and REMAINS returned to his family for mourning to begin #freebassel http://thndr.me/zCyV79

CTIA v. Berkeley: affirmed

I was incredibly happy to receive the opinion from the 9th Circuit affirming the decision of the district court, finding that the Berkeley ordinance does not violate the First Amendment. Here’s my blog entry after the argument. And here’s the opinion. 

So I’ve had my first “zero-carbon-footprint-you” threat

Jeff Ray writes: 

I’m sure he’s just trying to make me feel guilty to give up an old charity — buying carbon offsets each year. Thanks for the reminder, Jeff, I’ll take care of this myself. 

People, not acres, should count in a democracy. (And please don’t start with that “Republic” stuff). If they did, there’d be no doubt about this election. 

Let the Electors vote for all of America. #1p1voteNOW

(thanks to Mark Newman at U Michigan for this great work.)

Is there a “who’s here” app?

On the theory that if I can imagine it, someone has built it: Is there an app that allows you to grab a list of names and then compares the list with your contacts and produces a list of people you’re likely to know? E.g., you’re going to a conference, and rather than paging through 50 pages of names, it highlights the ones you probably know? 

One person, one vote? yea, right. The corruption that is the Electoral College

Electors have a simple choice: vote with the principle of "One person, One vote," or vote against it, by voting for the candidate who got fewer votes. Nothing in the Constitution creates this inequality. They make it, by their vote.

Spread this word.

Get this embed code here.

Thanks to Joseph Mornin for stepping up to build this. If you can do it better, the code is freely licensed here.