Thursday, March 06, 2008

ETech: Lessig Calls for Geeks to Code Money Out of Politics | Epicenter from Wired.com

Update: See Change Congress announcement.


ETech: Lessig Calls for Geeks to Code Money Out of Politics | Epicenter from Wired.com














The project, to be officially announced in two weeks, will give candidates for political office three choices they can support in order to get badges for their campaign website.

Candidates who pledge not to take money from lobbyists or political action committees can claim one badge, get another for pledging to ban "earmarks" in Congress and take a third for supporting public campaign financing.

From there, Lessig wants to find ways to get individuals to funnel early money to candidates who pledge to support one or more of the principles.

That's the carrot.

The stick approach includes possibly recruiting respected "citizen candidates" to run against politicians who don't support the statements -- a way, Lessig said, to make it cheaper for a candidate to support the principles than to ignore them.

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