Waldo Jaquith

I really, really, like Lessig’s proposal for campaign contributions. Everybody would still be free to provide financial support to the candidate of their choice, but they would have no reason to expect any individual favors in return. And that, surely, would put an end to the insidious practice of making contributions to both candidates, just to “cover one’s bases”.

Posted by Harry Landers on 23 November 2011 @ 1pm

The good thing about the campaign contribution plan is that I could say I gave $10K to each candidate without having to write out a check.

On nicknames- Baseball has probably suffered the most from the lack of nicknames in recent years. Gone are nicknames like Babe Ruth, Dizzy Dean, Home Run Baker, 3 Finger Brown, Goose Goslin, Lefty Grove, Catfish Hunter, Wee Willie Keeler, Rabbit Maranville, Dazzy Vance.

Posted by robert on 23 November 2011 @ 2pm

On the contributions, I like the premise and the theory but I don’t think in the reality it would work. I thought, erroneously, that members of Congress kept their personal finances in a blind trust once they took public office. Now we hear they have all been doing insider trading the whole time they were in office. Why would we think this would be any different? I’m just too cynical of the whole bunch at this point.

Posted by HES on 23 November 2011 @ 3pm

On the contributions, I like the premise and the theory but I don’t think in the reality it would work. I thought, erroneously, that members of Congress kept their personal finances in a blind trust once they took public office. Now we hear they have all been doing insider trading the whole time they were in office. Why would we think this would be any different?

It would be different because they’d never be given access to the information. The FEC (presumably) would receive the contributions and disburse the money to the candidate in batches, and issue reimbursements to donors in the same method. The candidate simply never has the information in the first place, and has no way to learn it.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 23 November 2011 @ 4pm

How does Lessig propose to deal with the problem of independent expenditures?

Posted by Roger on 23 November 2011 @ 8pm

It may work, but my cynicism at this time knows no bounds. It would also take some strong independent minded pols to put this in place. We’re running short on that type right now.

Posted by hes on 23 November 2011 @ 8pm

How does Lessig propose to deal with the problem of independent expenditures?

He doesn’t. At least, not in this article. He’s one of the nation’s finest legal minds, and quite prolific, so I wouldn’t put it past him to have a proposed solution. :)

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 23 November 2011 @ 9pm