Lawrence Lessig Quotes

You've got to just follow the money [in Washington]. You see it. There's no countervailing power.

Big money is ruining the political system.

Soft money will find its way and seep into the political system and corrode it, unless we plug every hole.

Most scandals involve broken laws. In the case of the congressional campaign financing system, the laws themselves are the scandal.

There's issue of a corrupt campaign finance system, where big money interests and Wall Street are trying to buy elections.Those are the issues that are resonating.

Barack Obama's large contributor was Goldman Sachs - same thing on the Republican side. If you go to both their conventions, you see the same lobbyists paying off both sides so they win either way.

I would do away with super PACs. I think it's a cancer.

In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed.

Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.

The reality is that asking the public to fund political campaigns accomplishes nothing. Candidates continue to seek interest-group support through other channels, both financial and in-kind, and corruption problems abound.

America's political system has evolved over the last 50 years in ways that have enhanced the power of business lobbies.

I think we have to look at the whole way campaigns are financed. The No. 1 problem is PAC and special-interest money.

I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life.

Well I think money has been going into political campaigns for a very long time.

We have become part-time Senators and full time fund-raisers. Even the schedule of the Senate itself is now arranged around the need to raise money for the next political campaign, rather than around the need to solve the nation's problems and do the people's business.

We've got a thousand lobbyists in thousand dollar suits giving you a thousand reasons we can't change.

The financial interests have captured the government institutions.

The Federal campaign contribution limit of $2,500 is way too low. You can’t even buy a Democrat for $2,500.

Not since the gilded age has our politics been opened so wide to corporate contribution and donations from secret sources.

I will not be doing Super-Pacs of any sort. I think allowing unlimited contributions to campaigns is a terrible and an unfortunate step towards plutocracy.

Talking to Republicans who aren't leaders - that's not very difficult both on anti-trust and on campaign finance reform. I think it's a lot more complicated when you talk to highly funded leaders - that's the innate, deeply problematic part of our politics.

Most of the corruption in Albany is legal corruption, not illegal bribery. It comes from campaigns being funded by millionaires and corporations.

The campaign finance scandal in America is the global warming of American political life - with cash substituting for deadly solar radiation.

If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be 'Citizens United.' I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

We have to end Citizens United, and we have to do it united as a people. If we don't do it, our system is going to be further corrupted.