Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend CodeAway with some of my fellow Utah Geeks, the second of such events that I have been able to attend. If you have yet to attend such an event I strongly recommend it, not only was it excellent for meeting a bunch of great individuals and perhaps getting some work done but also a little practice with Rock Band. This week at the CodeAway we went into a tangent regarding politics… You’re still there? Good. So we went on to a tangent regarding politics, this one due to the attendance of M. David Peterson who does development work for Lawrence Lessig who as you may know recently is considering a run for Congress. Now, you may be wondering what that has to do with Utah or any place else for that matter. And that’s what I’m now going to tell you about. One of Lessig’s goals in running for Congress is to begin a movement just like he did with Creative Commons, this one targeted squarely at those in Congress and their, for lack of a better term, shortsightedness when it comes to campaign financing. Lessig would like to make available to those in Congress a simple notice that they can use to say that they refuse to take money from special interest groups and so on.
The fantastic thing about this is, that he doesn’t even have to win. With the amount of money that’s being poured into elections this year making it the most expensive in history, and with multiple candidates standing up and saying that they will not take money from special interest groups its the perfect time for someone to stand up and give them a simple way of saying that they can not be bought in any way shape or form. This very well could be the extra nudge that is necessary to get the ball rolling on something above and beyond that of campaign finance reform but indeed a veritable upheaval in the politics of the United States.
Head over to see the video Lessig posted on Lessig08.
February 26, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Too bad I missed the codeaway this time around. Sounds like it was fun!