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Places the Middle Class Can't Afford to Live Any More
Lawrence Lessig is a correspondent for The Atlantic, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, director of Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and founder of Rootstrikers, an activist network opposed to corruption in government. More
Lessig's books include Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Our Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It, One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic, and the recent Le$terland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It. He serves on the Board of Creative Commons, MapLight, Brave New Film Foundation, The American Academy, Berlin, AXA Research Fund and iCommons.org, and on the advisory board of the Sunlight Foundation. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, and has received numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, Fastcase 50 Award and being named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries. Lessig holds a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in philosophy from Cambridge, and a J.D. from Yale. Prior to rejoining the Harvard faculty, Lessig was a professor at Stanford Law School, where he founded the school's Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.
If he had met a conservative Court on its own ground, the solicitor general could have notched a victory for liberalism—and helped safeguard campaign-finance protections. More »
The GOP isn't the only party in need of an overhaul. Liberals ought to be demanding big changes, too -- starting with campaign-finance reform. More »
It won't bring him back. But the loss of the Internet activist has prompted a bill in Congress that would protect others from the same kind of prosecutorial abuse. More »
The solution must come from the grassroots -- it can't be imposed from above by reform-minded members of Congress. More »
In 2008, the candidate promised to change the "system in Washington." It's time for him to deliver on that promise. More »
If the president wins a second term, he could leave no greater legacy than a corruption-free capital. More »
Can the longest-sitting member of Congress force the Supreme Court to reconsider its Citizens United decision? More »
Previewing prepared remarks on the negative impact of the 2012 Supreme Court decision More »
Big donors are a big threat to American democracy, proving the need for campaign finance reform. More »
In a commencement address at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, the author posed this challenge: Fix the broken legal system and serve everyday citizens. More »
If and when it becomes clear he can't win, the likely Americans Elect candidate says he'll ask any backers to vote for one of the major party candidates instead. More »
The corrupting influence of money in politics is the most serious issue the country currently faces. Should we continue to allow a handful of people to control the fate of our elections? More »
A response to Randy Barnett's "Larry Lessig: If the Republican Justices Do Not Agree With Me They Will Be Acting Politically" More »
He may be a staunch conservative, but the justice understands the commerce clause better than anyone else on the Supreme Court. More »
Overturning the decision wouldn't be enough to level the disproportionate influence of the wealthy on American politics. There's a deeper problem Congress needs to address. More »
