Well ever since Lawrence Lessig wrote a book about campaign finance reform that basically repeated a blog post I wrote two years ago, I’ve been feeling much encouraged to cause more trouble in the realm of electoral politics. So here we go.
In the above-mentioned post and book, Larry and I (I love saying that) suggested that campaigns be funded by giving every taxpayer a voucher for some small amount that they could give to a candidate of their choice, and that candidate could redeem that voucher for cash.
I think this is a great idea, the problem is, it requires the government to take a leadership role, and since the representatives and senators are already bought off, the likelihood of it ever being passed is slight. Therefore, I have a whole new idea. I call it Bob’s House o’ Senators.
The basic idea is this: individuals like you and me could go to a website where one could give a dollar in support of a given issue. We would, in essence, create a sort of policy co-op, and by pooling our money, we could buy a senator or representative just like rich people do.
For example, one co-op choice could be about transportation infrastructure. You could put in a dollar or two dollars or five dollars, whatever… and when the amount of money collected was enough to buy influence, this would be made available to any congressman who supported that issue. So instead of that Congressman having to always go to an individual billionaire for support, they would now be obligated to that particular issue of that co-op.
It could be even more fun by bundling issues, say, a senator could only get this money if they supported infrastructure improvements and high-speed rail.
I think this is an absolutely magnificent idea for the next Mark Zuckerberg out there. All you would need is a little bit of software, a web site, some legalese, and a bank account. And I love how it takes that “corporations are people” ruling and turns it on its head, as this would be a corporation too, but representing rank and file citizens directly.
What I also like about this idea is, it doesn’t really require any action by federal legislators. It accepts Washington’s current mode of business as usual, but harnesses the power of the Internet to bring like-minded individuals together to support a given agenda.
It would be reasonable to pay the management of this co-op a fee of approximately 15%, so they would be motivated to promote it and just generally serve their customers directly.
There you go, Larry. 🙂
© Justin Locke
