THE GAME IS RIGGED: Until Elections Are Publicly Financed, Voting Will Continue To NOT Matter

TIME: Evidence suggests that the U.S. Congress is less popular today than the British crown was in the 13 colonies at the time of the American Revolution. So why do voters continue to send so many incumbents back to Washington? The system is rigged, argues Larry Lessig, a maverick Harvard Law School professor and prominent advocate for campaign finance reform. According to Lessig, the outcome of many Congressional elections are decided ahead of the vote by a tiny fraction of the population – the donors who give to Super PACs. In order to combat the undue influence of these political-action committees, Lessig took an unusual step earlier this year. He formed a Super PAC of his own. Lessig’s MayDay Super PAC is funding candidates in this year’s midterm elections who have pledged to support campaign finance reform. Lessig is not attempting to change the system overnight. Instead he hopes to influence the outcome of a handful of elections this year with the hope of translating limited electoral success into a movement that will be a major force in 2016. To get his message out, Lessig recently participated in a novel experiment at The Nantucket Project, a burgeoning festival of ideas that TED founder Richard Saul Wurman says is “rapidly becoming the best conference in the land.” At the event, Lessig was joined onstage by two artists who drew live illustrations of his talk. This multimedia experiment was directed by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki and has been edited into the short film above. MORE