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A citizen-funded super PAC, to end all super PACs.

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Mayday PAC in the Media

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# Mayday PAC in the Media
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###[Concord Monitor: Editorial - GOP should Choose Rubens for Senate](http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/13333938-95/editorial-gop-should-choose-rubens-for-senate)
> Scott Brown may be dominating the headlines and the airwaves in the GOP’s quest to unseat Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. But Jim Rubens is the candidate who offers New Hampshire Republicans the clearest view of where he stands and where the party should be going.

> The Rubens campaign is also being supported by the bipartisan Mayday PAC, which aims to help elect candidates who are likely to push for campaign finance reform. The rising influence of money in politics has an ever-tightening grip on both parties, and it’s a hopeful sign to have a candidate who is serious about meaningful reform.



###[Salon: “It shocks people, but it’s important”: Lawrence Lessig on the “radical” shift in American politics](http://www.salon.com/2014/08/30/it_shocks_people_but_its_important_lawrence_lessig_on_the_radical_shift_in_american_politics/)
> I calculated the number of relevant funders in American politics today; it’s something like 150,000 Americans, which is about the same number of people named Lester in the United States. 

> When I say this statistic, it sort of shocks people, but it’s important to keep this in mind: When Ronald Reagan ran for reelection, he attended eight fundraisers. When Obama ran for reelection, he attended 228 fundraisers



###[Re/Code: Tech-Funded PAC’s Race for Legitimacy Runs Through New Hampshire](http://recode.net/2014/08/26/tech-funded-pacs-race-for-legitimacy-runs-through-new-hampshire/)
> Jim Rubens is an unlikely political savior, but the tech-funded Mayday PAC is betting the unknown New Hampshire Republican can pull off a miracle.

> Mayday’s focus on New Hampshire and Iowa — both states that hold early, influential presidential primaries — is a deliberate attempt to get campaign finance reform on the radar screens of local activists



###[Vice: Jim Rubens and the Lonely Republican Crusade to Get Money Out Politics](http://www.vice.com/read/meet-jim-rubens-the-unlikely-republican-who-wants-to-get-money-out-of-politics)
> Rubens appears to be bridging the gap between right- and left-wing populism. Last month, Mayday PAC, the “anti-Super PAC Super PAC," …pledg[ed] to spend upward of $1 million on his primary campaign against Brown.



###[Monadnock Ledger-Transcript: ‘Paying it backward’](http://www.ledgertranscript.com/home/13274621-95/paying-it-backward)
> Lessig said New Hampshire has a “unique opportunity to set the tone and progress” for the 2016 presidential elections. New Hampshire’s Republican primary election is on Sept. 9.

> On Saturday, when asked about what New Hampshire can do in the upcoming elections in September and November, Lessig said the public can ask “tough questions” and support candidates who are for reforming the system. If these candidates sweep the elections, Lessig said, that will carry over to the 2016 presidential election. New Hampshire has the first presidential primary in the nation.


###[Politico Magazine: The PAC to End All PACs Is a Farce](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/the-pac-to-end-all-pacs-is-a-failure-110329_Page2.html#ixzz3BVbXxOj3)
> Oddly enough, Gallego’s website does not highlight campaign reform as one of his major issues, although if you stare hard enough you can find a small link to his support for a federal matching-fund program for small donations

> Even though Mayday PAC has not yet started advertising on behalf of Shea-Porter, she unquestionably measures up to Lessig’s criteria. Her campaign website, for example, lists “Campaign Finance Reform” as her top issue as she details her backing for measures ranging from full disclosure of Super PAC donors to public financing of campaigns.



###[TheINDsider.com: Lessig inveighs against money in politics at Top 50](http://www.theind.com/news/indreporter/18665-lessig-inveighs-against-money-in-politics-at-top-50)
> There are 144,000 people in the United States named Lester — or .05 percent. That’s also the percentage of affluent Americans who gave the maximum amount allowed to a federal candidate — hence Lesterland equals the American federal election system.

> It’s a conceit used by Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig in a book, in well-received TED Talks and, this week, in the keynote address at the annual ABiz Top 50 Luncheon held in the Cajundome Convention Center. Lessig’s message: money corrupts the electoral process and it’s past time for regular citizens to reclaim the power.



###[NJ.com: Opinion: Anti-corruption act takes hold in Princeton as MayDay PAC provides hope](http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/08/opinion_1.html)
> With $12 million raised and matched, the MayDay PAC has launched a test this summer to win at least five and, perhaps, as many as eight congressional races in 2014. Its initial goal was five races – two Republican candidates and three Democrats all pledged to reform campaign finance laws. 

> In Princeton, the council’s resolution calls upon the 12th Congressional District representative and the 16th District state legislators to support and introduce anti-corruption legislation to the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Statehouse, respectively.



###[SF Gate: Tech mogul tackles 'dark money' in political campaigns](http://www.sfgate.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/Tech-mogul-tackles-dark-money-in-political-5704914.php)
> Some other tech-inspired reform ideas are catching fire, like one led by longtime Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig, who is now teaching at Harvard. This year Lessig started the Mayday PAC, which he described as a "citizen-funded, kick-started super PAC to end all super PACs."

> Lessig has talked about reforming the role of money in Congress for nearly a decade - even exploring a Silicon Valley run for the House in 2008. He's finally got traction with Mayday, raising $7.8 million from more than 55,000 individuals since launching - including an endorsement from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. 



###[Concord Monitor: Mayday PAC releases satirical ad in support of U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rubens](http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/politics/13230878-95/mayday-pac-releases-satirical-ad-in-support-of-us-senate-candidate-jim-rubens)
> The Mayday PAC, a group aiming to get big money out of politics, released its first television ad in support of U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rubens. And it recruited the satirical candidate “Honest Gil” to do it.

> “You see me and my buddy, Scott Brown, we want to take your tax dollars and hand them out to the cronies and lobbyists who bankroll our political campaigns,” Fulbright says. “But this Jim Rubens guy, he wants to stop corruption in Washington. He thinks it’s his job to help the people of New Hampshire.”



###[Politico: ‘Honest Gil’ this New Hampshire airwaves](http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/21/super-pacs-take-aim-scott-brown/wyyMDzKDLMkCHXbnq2QaTP/story.html?p1=ArticleTab_Article_Bottom)
> Also on the attack: Mayday PAC, a super PAC aimed at ending super PACs and reducing the influence of money in politics. It’s set to start airing a strange TV ad on Friday boosting one of Brown’s longshot GOP opponents, former state senator Jim Rubens, ahead of the Sept. 9 New Hampshire primary.

> The PAC, launched by Harvard Law School professor, author, and activist Lawrence Lessig, is supporting both Democratic and Republican candidates this cycle. The group is “working to fundamental change the way elections are funded” said a spokeswoman, Allison Bryan.



###[Boston Globe: Super PACs take aim at N.H. Senate hopeful Scott Brown](http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/21/super-pacs-take-aim-scott-brown/wyyMDzKDLMkCHXbnq2QaTP/story.html?p1=ArticleTab_Article_Bottom)
> Also on the attack: Mayday PAC, a super PAC aimed at ending super PACs and reducing the influence of money in politics. It’s set to start airing a strange TV ad on Friday boosting one of Brown’s longshot GOP opponents, former state senator Jim Rubens, ahead of the Sept. 9 New Hampshire primary.

> The PAC, launched by Harvard Law School professor, author, and activist Lawrence Lessig, is supporting both Democratic and Republican candidates this cycle. The group is “working to fundamental change the way elections are funded” said a spokeswoman, Allison Bryan.



###[CNN: The 'Honest Politician' strikes again](http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/21/the-honest-politician-strikes-again/)
> The satirical Senate candidate, who also made an appearance earlier this year in Kentucky, is pretending to run for office under the banner of the anti-corruption group Represent.Us. He will appear in a television ad airing across New Hampshire starting this Friday.

> The ads are funded by MayDay PAC, an organization which backs campaign finance reform. Last month, MayDay PAC endorsed former New Hampshire state Sen. Jim Rubens over former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown in the state's upcoming GOP Senate primary.



###[Valley News Editorial: Fight Money With Money — Rubens Bucks a Political Trend](http://www.vnews.com/home/12138248-95/editorial-fight-money-with-money-rubens-bucks-a-political-trend)
> Mayday is backing Rubens because he supports campaign finance reform. A New York Times story noted that he favors giving voters a $50 tax rebate check every two years to be spent on candidate contributions. He has also called for a searchable database of contributions...

> Rubens is correct about the public’s disgust with the money virus that has infected our democracy. The cure won’t be easy, since, as the Times noted, Republican leaders such as Sen. Mitch McConnell and conservative legal scholars “deeply oppose’’ proposals that would restrict money in campaigns, “arguing that they are an infringement on free speech and healthy political competition.”



###[The Conway Daily Sun: U.S. Senate candidates talk money in politics](http://www.conwaydailysun.com/newsx/local-news/115879-u-s-senate-candidates-talk-money-in-politics)
> Republican candidates for U.S. Senate shared their thoughts on the influence of money in politics with a reporter at the end of last week's debate in North Conway.

> Mayday.us asks people to "embrace the irony" in their message. When asked about the race, Lessig said the important question is if a candidate has "committed to fundamental reform." "Shaheen and Rubens have," said Lessig. "Brown and Smith have not. That's why we've endorsed Rubens in the GOP primary."



###[Think Progress: Can A SuperPAC Really End All SuperPACs?](http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/08/19/3472597/superpac-mayday-end-superpacs/)
> A 2012 poll found nearly 7 in 10 Americans would prefer that super PACs — political committees that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money for or against federal candidates — were banned entirely.

> “To us, we’ll be looking for how we moved the dial between before our intervention and after and whether we can show through the data that a significant proportion of that movement was because of us. We’re creating the conditions to make that possible, by having the right kind of data collected, the right kind of ongoing process to do that,” Lessig observed.



###[Huffington Post: Money in Politics: Rising in Intensity as a 2014 Election Issue](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/money-in-politics-rising_b_5686326.html?utm_hp_ref=politics)
> There is more and more evidence that Democrats and progressives are discovering the power of taking on big money in politics as a central issue in their campaign strategies

> These kinds of grassroots videos are the latest sign that candidates all over the country, in red states as well as purple and blue, are taking up the fight against money in politics



###[National Journal: Why One PAC Is Succeeding at Fighting Money in Politics Where Others Fell Short](http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-one-pac-is-succeeding-at-fighting-money-in-politics-where-others-fell-short-20140814)
> Much of the coverage of Mayday PAC treats its core idea as though it is entirely novel. It's not. Mayday is just one of the latest initiatives to join a burgeoning coalition that is collectively hacking away at what its advocates see as big money's corrosive effects on democracy.

> "I'm fortunately picking this up at a point in time when America is really ripe to do something," Lessig says. "If I were doing this five years ago, there would be two orders of magnitude difference in the pickup from the very same message. So, yes, I'm doing my part, but I'm doing my part in the middle of a tinderbox. It doesn't take much to get people going on this."



###[WMUR 9 ABC: Mayday PAC endorses Shea-Porter, begins radio ads for Rubens](http://www.wmur.com/politics/mayday-pac-endorses-sheaporter-begins-radio-ads-for-rubens/27414302#ixzz3ABZsi8ja)
> A new well-funded political action committee that advocates for campaign finance reform has endorsed Democratic U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter's re-election campaign and has begun spending money to back up their endorsement of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rubens.

> The endorsement of Shea-Porter may end up being a bigger deal. While Rubens has a lot of ground to make up in his Republican primary, Shea-Porter is in a big fight for re-election.



###[News Observer: Mayday PAC endorses Rep. Walter Jones](http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/08/11/4065394/mayday-pac-endorses-rep-walter.html#storylink=cpy)
> Mayday PAC announced Monday it is endorsing incumbent U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, who represents the state's 3rd Congressional District.

> The PAC considers this year's efforts part of its test program with the aim of launching a bigger campaign in 2016.



###[Concord Monitor: Mayday PAC will back Rep. Carol Shea-Porter for her campaign finance reform stance](http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/campaignmonitor/13106056-95/mayday-pac-will-back-rep-carol-shea-porter-for-her-campaign-finance-reform-stance)
> The Mayday PAC, a super PAC created to get big money out of politics, announced it will jump into a second New Hampshire race. The group said yesterday it will back U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, a Democrat, in her re-election bid against Republican Frank Guinta because she has co-sponsored bills that aim to reform campaign finance practices.



###[New Hampshire Public Radio: Shea-Porter Gets PAC Money For Opposing PAC Money](http://nhpr.org/post/shea-porter-gets-pac-money-opposing-pac-money)
> A political action committee on a mission to overhaul  how campaigns are financed is putting its weight behind first district Democratic Congresswoman, Carol Shea-Porter. Porter  is  one of 8 candidates to be endorsed by Mayday, which expects to spent $13 million dollars this campaign season.



###[In The Capital: Mayday PAC Announces Support of 3 Candidates in Fight For Campaign Finance Reform](http://inthecapital.streetwise.co/2014/08/11/mayday-pac-announces-support-of-3-candidates-in-fight-for-campaign-finance-reform/)
> The Mayday PAC received a lot more media attention than most political action committees when itburst onto the political scene this past spring. Created by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, the PAC was dubbed the "Super PAC to End Super PACs" for its unique goal to fund political candidates who are fighting to reduce to influence of money in politics.

>  On Monday the Mayday PAC announced three candidates that they feel fit the bill of the campaign finance reformers we've all been waiting for.



###[Reuters: Lawrence Lessig’s Mayday PAC endorses three House candidates](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/11/us-usa-politics-pac-idUSKBN0GB1O920140811)
> A political action committee, formed this year with the goal of drastically reducing the role of big-money donors in politics, on Monday endorsed three candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives for their views on campaign finance reform.

> The group plans to pick three more candidates in the coming weeks to throw its financial clout behind.



###[Washington Post: A leading ‘anti-super PAC’ just backed three more candidates for Congress](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/08/11/a-leading-anti-super-pac-just-backed-three-more-candidates-for-congress/)
>  Mayday PAC said it now plans to target eight congressional races in the midterm election. Its initial goal was five races.

> Mayday PAC has already raised more $7.8 million, a surprisingly high number. It's one of several groups that have emerged this year as a force in the campaign finance reform movement.



###[TIME: The ‘Super PAC to End Super PACs’ Backs 3 New Candidates](http://time.com/3098990/mayday-pac-lawrence-lessig-walter-jones-carol-shea-porter/)
>  Mayday PAC, the political action committee determined to spearhead a revolution in the way elections are funded in America, announces Monday three candidates it’s supporting in 2014, plus the news that the Super PAC will deploy resources in three additional races.

> ... incumbents Rep. Walter Jones (R—N.C.) and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D—N.H.), and Ruben Gallego, a Democrat running for his party’s nomination in Arizona’s 7th congressional district



###[Sunlight Foundation: Questions remain for Mayday PAC](http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/07/22/questions-remain-for-mayday-pac/)
>  The group's founders want to stamp out corruption of the campaign finance system, starting with five races in the midterm elections. The goal is to elect candidates committed to campaign finance reform, regardless of party.

> From what we have seen in the group's FEC report, Mayday has had some success in attracting small dollar contributions. Of the $2,091,015 in itemized contributions it received from April through June, $481,269.88 came from donors who gave less than $1,000 total. An additional $1.2 million came from donors who gave less than $200. None of the itemized money came from other PACs or corporations.



###[Time: Few Candidates Fear Mayday, The ‘Super PAC to End Super PACs’](https://time.com/3089560/mayday-super-pac-list/)
>  The Mayday Super PAC, which is bankrolling pro-campaign finance reform candidates and targeting those it sees as barriers to change, recently gave politicians the chance to “inoculate” themselves from the PAC’s wrath by pledging to support reform. Not many took the medicine.

> Just 35 of the roughly 2,500 candidates running for House and Senate seats in 2014 (many of the 2,500 are not serious contenders) made the Mayday PAC pledge to support at least one proposal to substantially change the way campaigns are financed...


###[Tech Dirt: Another SuperPAC Trying Another Approach To Getting 'Dark' Money Out Of Politics](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140731/15221628077/another-superpac-trying-another-approach-to-actually-getting-nefarious-money-out-politics.shtml)
>  As bad as it is, Lawrence Lessig has no reservations about using a bad, unjust — some say corrupt — campaign finance system to change the way campaigns are funded.

> So Mayday is using the rules that allow super PACs to raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals and spend it to overtly advocate for or against political candidates, to test its message and strategy in a handful of races this year. Among them is the open seat Iowa 3rd Congressional District race where Mayday is backing Democrat Staci Appel.



###[Quad City Times:  Campaign finance reformers test ‘moonshot strategy’ in Iowa congressional race](http://qctimes.com/news/local/government-and-politics/elections/campaign-finance-reformers-test-moonshot-strategy-in-iowa-congressional-race/article_ae162ad6-53ad-5c88-a01a-db362ed4059f.html)
>  As bad as it is, Lawrence Lessig has no reservations about using a bad, unjust — some say corrupt — campaign finance system to change the way campaigns are funded.

> So Mayday is using the rules that allow super PACs to raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals and spend it to overtly advocate for or against political candidates, to test its message and strategy in a handful of races this year. Among them is the open seat Iowa 3rd Congressional District race where Mayday is backing Democrat Staci Appel.



###[The Washington Post:  Yet another super PAC is using big money to take on big money](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/07/31/yet-another-super-pac-is-using-big-money-to-take-on-big-money/)
>  Mayday PAC, which was started by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig this spring, has amassed an arsenal of $12 million that it plans to use to bolster five congressional candidates who have committed to backing measures that elevate small donors. 

> The boomlet in anti-big-money super PACs comes as Democrats have sought to make the influence of wealthy individuals on politics a prominent issue in this year’s elections. While the issue animates the liberal base, it remains to be seen how the new groups will demonstrate their impact amid a deluge of political spending.



###[All Gov:  New Super PAC Spends Big Money to Fight Big Money in Politics](http://www.allgov.com/news/where-is-the-money-going/new-super-pac-spends-big-money-to-fight-big-money-in-politics-140731?news=853843)
>  If you can fight fire with fire, as the saying goes, then why not fight big money with big money in the world of elections?

> First off, the group is plunking down $4 million to support candidates in New Hampshire and Iowa, where voters tend to like campaigns that are anti-big money.



###[Yale Alumni Magazine:  Lawrence Lessig ’89JD - ‘Embrace the irony’](http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/blog_posts/1853)
>  “Inside-the-Beltway people don’t think this issue matters,” Lawrence Lessig ’89JD tells the New York Times. “We think this issue does matter, and we want to prove it.”

> Lessig, a Harvard law professor, is talking about the way big money dominates national politics. His solution: Mayday PAC, “a crowdfunded Super PAC to end all Super PACS.”



###[The Des Moines Register:  How ironic - Mayday PAC wants to end all PACS](http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/kathie-obradovich/2014/07/31/mayday-pac-ending-pacs/13395307/)
>  Embrace the irony. That's the slogan of a new super PAC that has budgeted $2 million to spend in Iowa's 3rd Congressional District race. It's a special-interest organization, but Mayday PAC is not like others lined up to influence voters.

> Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig co-founded Mayday PAC with Republican strategist Mark McKinnon. Lessig says he's not bothered by the idea of using super-PAC tactics to fight against a system he considers a menace to American democracy.



###[The New York Times:  Spending Big to Fight Big Donors in Campaigns](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/us/spending-big-to-fight-big-donors.html?_r=1)
>  For context, for the last year Rubens has only raised $588,000 and loaned his campaign another $500,000. Further, Brown has raised $2.6 million for his campaign though he is expected to raise much more and he has his own Super PACs to help his effort.

> The ultimate goal is to reverse a series of defeats that advocates of tighter restrictions on campaign money have suffered since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.



###[Concord Monitor:  Mayday PAC backs Rubens in Republican U.S Senate primary](http://www.concordmonitor.com/community/town-by-town/concord/12939659-95/mayday-pac-backs-rubens-in-republican-us-senate-primary)
>  A national PAC aimed at curbing the influence of money in politics announced yesterday it will throw its support behind Jim Rubens in the Republican primary race for U.S. Senate.

> “The race is for Scott Brown to lose. We want to make sure this is an issue so there is reason for him to get back on the right side,” Lessig said.



###[Bloomberg TV (VIDEO):  Mayday PAC’s Campaign to Get Money out of Politics](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/mayday-pac-s-campaign-to-get-money-out-of-politics-9XcMErBmSqKJ8~3zhTpFoA.html)
>  Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig discusses money in politics and his crowdfunded PAC’s election strategy. He speaks on ‘Market Makers.”



###[The Cato Institute:  Second Verse, Same as the First](http://www.cato.org/blog/second-verse-same-first?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cato-at-liberty+(Cato+at+Liberty))
>  It quoted Lessig saying, “Inside-the-Beltway people don’t think this issue matters, they don’t think voters vote on the basis of this issue, and they advise their politicians not to talk about it.”

>  ...I learned that Lessig’s reform plan is not direct public funding, in which taxpayer money goes from the Treasury to campaigns, but indirect. He would rebate $50 in taxes in the form of a “democracy voucher.”



###[BillMoyers.com:  The Super PAC to End Super PACs Gets Started](http://billmoyers.com/2014/07/29/the-super-pac-to-end-super-pacs-gets-started/)
>  The Mayday PAC will be backing Democrat Staci Appel in her campaign to win an open US senate seat for Iowa, and Republican Jim Rubens, a former state senator, in his bid to defeat former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown in the New Hampshire Republican Senate primary.

> Last January, Lessig and others concerned about the influence of money in politics marched across New Hampshire to raise awareness about the issue.



###[UALR Public Radio:  The New SuperPAC That Spends Big So That Others Spend Less](http://ualrpublicradio.org/post/new-superpac-spends-big-so-others-spend-less)
>  The Mayday PAC's goal is to take candidates like Rubens - candidates who are behind in the polls or in close races - and make their support for changing campaign finance a central part of the election. The idea is to prove that this is an issue that can change the way people vote.

> LESSIG: I'm not promising utopia. I'm not promising fixing politics so people love it or want their children to marry politicians. All I'm addressing is a tiny slice, but I think the critical first slice to solve...



###[WMUR ABC Local:  Jim Rubens has biggest day in his U.S. Senate campaign](http://www.wmur.com/political-scoop/jim-rubens-has-biggest-day-in-his-us-senate-campaign/27211912#!brzY6Q)
>  Both candidates have passed Mayday PAC's two-pronged litmus test for support. The informal test requires candidates who might benefit from the super PAC to endorse what Mayday PAC has called "fundamental reform" to campaign finance

> "Voters are fed up to their eye teeth with career politicians who go to Washington to collect campaign cash rather than solving the nations' problems and serving the people they represent," Rubens said.



###[The Washington Post:  The super PAC to end super PACs leaps into New Hampshire and Iowa](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/07/29/the-super-pac-to-end-super-pacs-leaps-into-new-hampshire-and-iowa/)
>  Both candidates have passed Mayday PAC's two-pronged litmus test for support. The informal test requires candidates who might benefit from the super PAC to endorse what Mayday PAC has called "fundamental reform" to campaign finance

> "If a candidate for Congress wants to be inoculated from being on our target list, there is an easy way to do so: get on the right side of reform," Lessig told supporters in an e-mail Tuesday.



###[CBS News:  Super PAC "to end all super PACs" opposes Scott Brown in New Hampshire](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/super-pac-to-end-all-super-pacs-opposes-scott-brown-in-new-hampshire/)
>  In the New Hampshire Republican Senate primary, the group is supporting state Sen. Jim Rubens over against former Sen. Scott Brown. Brown is most likely to win the primary and challenge Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen

> Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig, one of the founders of Mayday, said in a statement the group chose a Democrat and a Republican to support to send a message.



###[The Boston Globe:  Super PAC to end all super PACs targets New Hampshire Senate race](http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2014/07/29/super-pac-end-all-super-pacs-targets-new-hampshire-senate-race/dXHSkCwK4G7bPeXqCst2rK/story.html)
>  The New Hampshire US Senate race is one of two in the crosshairs of the super PAC to that hopes to end all super PACs.

> The PAC, according to its website, supports Rubens because he supports public financing for elections and an act that would give taxpayers up to $200 vouchers, which would be signed over to the candidate they support.


###[The Gazette:  Super PAC to end super PACs chooses Iowa race](http://thegazette.com/subject/news/politics/super-pac-to-end-super-pacs-chooses-iowa-race-20140729)
>  “We started with these two races to be crystal clear — it doesn’t matter who you are, what your party is, or what powerful friends you have,” Lessig said Tuesday morning. “If you are standing in the way of fundamental reform, if you are supporting what has become a fully corrupt system of money in politics, then you should watch your back.”

> A fact sheet on each candidate’s record on reform can be found online at https://mayday.us/factsheet.



###[Time:  The ‘Super PAC to End All Super PACs’ Is Backing These Candidates](http://time.com/3051449/campaign-finance-mayday-pac/)
>  Mayday PAC has said it will support a total of five candidates in this year’s midterms. However, it has left three of the five candidates it will ultimately support unannounced as a “warning shot,” as the group calls it, to other politicians.

> Mayday PAC says candidates have until 5 p.m. eastern time on August 5 to meet the group’s requirements or else risk being named a target.



###[Vox:  Larry Lessig backs a long-shot Republican in his campaign to clean up money in politics](http://www.vox.com/2014/7/29/5947835/larry-lessig-backs-a-long-shot-republican-in-his-campaign-to-clean-up)
>  Today Lessig announced the first two candidates who will receive support from the Mayday PAC. The choices illustrate just how difficult it is to find credible Republican candidates who will support public financing of elections.

> His campaign needs broad bipartisan support if it's going to overcome the entrenched interests opposing publicly-financed elections. And Rubens may have been the most promising Republican candidate the Mayday PAC could find.



###[Newsmax:  Campaign Finance Reform Groups to 'Fight Money with Money'](http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/campaign-finance-reform/2014/07/29/id/585451/)
>  The groups want to create common ground between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans who agree that big money has become a problem in campaigns. Mayday PAC will back candidates of either party that support reducing the influence of major donors.

> Mayday and other PACS such as Every Voice— which will work the issue on the state level— is not seeking to restrict spending but rather promoting ways to prompt more small donors to enter the fray and in this way lessen the impact of big contributors.


###[Daily Kos:  Mayday PAC's first two candidate choices - Does the left hand know what the right hand's doing?](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/29/1317493/-Mayday-PAC-s-first-two-candidate-choices-Does-the-left-hand-know-what-the-right-hand-s-doing)
>  Mayday PAC, which seeks to reform campaign finance by promoting candidates of either party who will support reform legislation to end the overwhelming influence of PAC money in U.S. elections, is faced with the challenge of walking a tightrope in choosing precisely which candidates it will support in 2014.

> In short, with its decision to back Iowa's Appel, Mayday has given liberals some reason to smile upon it. But then there's the little matter of Mayday's other Anointed One, New Hampshire Republican Jim Rubens.


###[Aljazeera America:  Walking for Office - Taking steps (many of them) to counter political cash](http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/29/walking-for-office.html)
>  “Larry was particularly interesting to me because here I am, a systems guy, and he’s talking about this as a system of legalized corruption,” explained Skarin

> ...when Lessig announced plans for the first New Hampshire Rebellion walk — 185 miles in two weeks — in January, Skarin signed up


###[Kelo Radio:  Pressler Calls for Campaign Finance Reform](http://kelo.com/news/articles/2014/jul/29/pressler-calls-for-campaign-finance-reform/)
>  Pressler praised Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig for continuing the fight for campaign reform when many others have just given up or just washed their hands of it.

> A second idea that Harvard Professor Lessig has put on the table has been by George W. Bush’s ethics czar, Richard Painter, which would be called the Taxation Only with Representation Act, which would give every voter a $200 voucher to fund small campaigns.



###[The Guardian:  The problem with the Koch brothers isn't their politics. It's their copycats](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/28/problem-koch-brothers-mega-donors)
>  According to Gallup, fully 50% of the country would support a federally funded campaign finance system with no private contributions whatsoever; 79% would vote for a law limiting contributions in some way.

> Lawrence Lessig – who launched Mayday Pac to blow up big money in politics by raising big money – just surpassed his initial fundraising goal of $5m by raking in $7.6m in small donations.



###[Washington Post:  Larry Lessig’s super PAC to end super PACs raised $2.5 million in just 2 days. Here’s what comes next.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/07/07/larry-lessigs-super-pac-to-end-super-pacs-raised-2-5-million-in-2-days/)
> With more than 50,000 contributors, the average donation works out to about $140. No matter what side you're on when it comes to campaign finance, this was a triumph of grassroots organizing, with small donations leading the way.

> First it has to convince people that campaign finance is an issue worth voting on at all. Then it has to persuade people to vote its way.



###[Daily Kos:  Mayday PAC Speaks: “Nothing guaranteeing [we] will spend the money as we have committed to"](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/08/1312531/-Mayday-PAC-Speaks-Nothing-guaranteeing-we-will-spend-the-money-as-we-have-committed-to)
> On their face, these are mostly soothingly reassuring answers...But at their heart, these assurances are all of the "oh, you can trust us" variety.


###[Washington Post: The techies are jumping into the super PAC game … to fight super PACs](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/07/16/the-techies-are-jumping-into-the-super-pac-game-to-fight-super-pacs/)
> Employees of Google donated a total of $131,087 to Mayday...
> ...23 Apple employees gave $11,250
> ...a dozen people employed by Microsoft gave $3,650
> ...two Adobe employees gave $1,250

###[Roll Call Opinion: Reforms May Fade, but Voter Anger Won’t](http://blogs.rollcall.com/beltway-insiders/reforms-may-fade-but-voter-anger-wont/?dcz=)
> But the latest campaign finance push, however impractical or constitutionally suspect, has tapped a well of voter anger that politicians ignore at their peril. Public disgust with Congress, which according to Gallup now enjoys a record-low 7 percent approval rating

> Some campaign finance experts cast the uphill amendment drive as an ill-advised distraction from more pragmatic changes. Lessig’s Mayday PAC, for one, is focused not on amending the Constitution but on such changes as matching small-dollar donations with public funding



###[The Daily Beast: George Takei Sets Phasers to Reform](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/15/george-takei-sets-phasers-to-reform.html)
> “I’m a person who believes in the ideal of one man, one vote—a true democracy, as opposed to a plutocracy where lobbyists can control the result of an election with their money, so I support campaign finance reform,” he said.



###[MSNBC: ‘Super PAC to end all super PACs’ rakes in donations](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lawrence-lessig-super-pac-rakes-donations)
> Lessig has stressed that the group is non-partisan, and its rhetoric calls out the corrupting influence of money on both parties. Still, given the difficulty of finding Republicans who are willing to commit to genuine campaign finance reform, it seems likely that Mayday would mostly support Democrats.



###[Huffington Post: Senate Dems Step Up to Take On Two Outrageous Supreme Court Decisions](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pearl-korn/senate-dems-step-up-to-ta_b_5587186.html)
> In the final hours of the most recent FEC reporting period, 51,533 donations came in to this PAC, totaling over $6.2 million, which has helped Mayday secure a grand total of over $12 million in its coffers.



###[The Real News (VIDEO): Hedges and Lessig on Money and Politics](http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12111)
> Chris Hedges interviews Lawrence Lessig about his plans to break the hold of big money over American elections


###[Truth Out: Crowdsourcing Our Way Out of the Crisis of Democracy](http://truth-out.org/news/item/24971-crowdsourcing-our-way-out-of-the-crisis-of-democracy)
> Have we reached that point? Many think so.  A recent poll found 74% of Americans agree the broken political system needs to be fixed first.

> Lessig...met the first hurdle this week when he raised $12 million for his ‘PAC to end all PACS.’ Now he has to show the campaign can elect politicians who will effectively confront the problem. The plan is for the tactic to grow in the next election after testing it in 2014.


###[Tech President: How to Raise $5 Million Online For Campaign Finance Reform: Why Mayday PAC Succeeded](http://techpresident.com/news/25187/how-raise-5-million-online-campaign-finance-reform-why-mayday-pac-succeeded)
> Some classic online fundraising best practices, executed beautifully
> An outstanding media strategy
> Thinking really hard, and trying and failing over and over—and then idea meets timing



###[VOX: Lawrence Lessig and George Takei have a plan to save American politics](http://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5888885/lessig)
> But with mere days to go Lessig was millions of dollars short of his goal. Then George Takei got involved.

> Lessig, who has far less campaign experience than Rove, needs to win a lot more races while spending a lot less money than American Crossroads. And for his plan to work — for 2014 to be the proof of concept Lessig needs for the massive push he envisions in 2016 — he needs to win those races convincingly.



###[VOX: 68% of Americans think elections are rigged](http://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5898365/68-of-americans-think-elections-are-rigged)
> A new Rasmussen poll finds that 68 percent of Americans think elections are rigged in favor of incumbents. And they're basically right.

> The term "rigged" might go a tad far. The problem here isn't fraud. In elections, like in so much else, the scandal is what's legal.



###[Center for Research on Globalization: The Illusion of Democracy in America. Rebellion Across the US against “Phony Democracy”](http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-illusion-of-democracy-in-america-rebellion-across-the-us-against-phony-democracy/5391058?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-illusion-of-democracy-in-america-rebellion-across-the-us-against-phony-democracy)
> “Eighty-six percent of all voters believe political leaders are more interested in protecting their power than in doing what’s right for the American people.

> Eighty-three percent believe the country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists, and other interests for their own gain.

> Hundreds marched in the New Hampshire Rebellion organized by Lawrence Lessig. In addition to marches to raise awareness, his approach to getting money out of politics includes raising millions to elect candidates that will work to end the ‘rule of money.’



###[Seacoast Online: Seacoast Samaritans' good deeds on display](http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140712/OPINION/407120307/-1/NEWSMAP)
> Thumbs up to the hundreds of concerned citizens who joined the 16-mile New Hampshire Rebellion walk on July 5 from Hampton Beach to Fort Constitution in New Castle.

> It was a long walk for a good cause, and your protest against the corrupting influence of unrestrained money in politics was amplified by media outlets nationwide.



###[Tech President: Lawrence Lessig's Public Q&A on How His $12 million Super PAC Will Fix Campaign Finance](http://techpresident.com/news/25183/lawrence-lessig-12-million-super-pac-fix-campaign-finance)
> The candidates selected will need to take a position on hard issues, like the five outlined at reform.to, which provide concrete plans to create a small donor system for campaign financing: matching citizen contributions and providing voters with vouchers.

> Lessig explained that candidates will be held accountable by committing to co-sponsoring a reform on campaign finance. The reason, said Lessig, is “if you get a majority of members [of Congress] who sponsor a piece of legislation, you have a tool to leverage that legislation on the floor."



###[ON the Media (RADIO INTERIVEW): The Super PAC to End Super PACs](http://www.onthemedia.org/story/super-pac-end-super-pacs/)
> The PAC now has 12 million dollars to try to elect a Congress committed to campaign finance reform. Bob speaks to Lessig about Mayday PAC’s next steps.



###[Daily Kos: Are Mayday PAC's Online Donors Red, Purple, or Blue?](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/10/1313026/-The-Color-of-Money-Are-Mayday-PAC-s-Online-Donors-Red-Purple-or-Blue)
> Long story short: the color of Mayday's small-online-donor money is distinctly blue. Actually, this may not be too surprising a result (though it's still worth quantifying): I suspect liberals today tend to feel persecuted by PACs, and probably for good reason, whereas conservatives tend to like rampant big-money-in-politics just fine, thank you very much.



###[Chicago Tribune: Democracy - No longer for sale?](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/sns-201407091730--tms--rkoehlerctnbk-a20140710-20140710,0,4597212.column)
> Money has the potential to commodify everything we value. It eats the human commons. Not only is its heedless pursuit wrecking the planet, it is devouring all that remains of American democracy.

> Pushing back against this possibility is MaydayPAC, founded by Harvard Law School professor, author and long-time activist Lawrence Lessig.



###[Motherboard: Five Candidates the Internet's Favorite Super PAC Should Spend Its Money On](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/five-candidates-the-internets-favorite-super-pac-should-spend-its-money-on)
> Mayday PAC explicitly says it wants to select five races that are tight enough so that it can claim that its campaign finance reform agenda made an impact. That's where things get tricky. For one thing, most Congressional races aren't even competitive, as Derek Willis notes at The Upshot, and the vast majority of incumbents win reelection. For another, campaign finance reform is not top-of-mind when most voters go to the polls...

> Lessig wants to change that.


###[Sacramento News and Review: Small money strikes back with the 99Rise movement](http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/small-money-strikes-back-with/content?oid=14008309)
> That’s why the “small money” proposals for public funding of elections put forward by Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig are so intriguing. Lessig suggests government-matching funds for candidates who rely on small donors, as well as small individual “vouchers” for voters to give to the candidates of their choice.



###[The Young Turks (VIDEO): Mayday PAC Scores HUGE Win In Fight For Democracy](http://www.maker.tv/video/cmsWhAtVUt4Q/maker/tytnetwork/series/theyoungturks)
> The PAC raised $1 million in its first month and reached another $5 million by Friday. A storm of donors posted on social media on the Fourth of July about getting "big money out of politics" and ending political corruption.



###[La Gaceta: 'Crowdfunding' para acabar con la corrupción](http://www.gaceta.es/noticias/crowdfunding-acabar-corrupcion-08072014-2039)
> Distintas iniciativas de crowdfunding llevan años financiando pequeños proyectos en todo el mundo. Ahora, el micromecenazgo abre las puertas de la financiación colectiva a propuestas que buscan cambiar la sociedad. Mayday PAC es el ejemplo perfecto de este tipo de campañas.



###[International Business Times: Lawrence Lessig-Backed Super PAC, Mayday.US, Raises $7M, Moves To Next Step](http://www.ibtimes.com/lawrence-lessig-backed-super-pac-maydayus-raises-7m-moves-next-step-1622482?ft=95p2z)
> The political action committee raised $1 million in its first month alone, another $5 million by July 4 and inspired donors to join in the social media onslaught by promising to “get big money out of US politics.”



###[Reader Supported News: The Mayday PAC -- the Super PAC to end all Super PACs](http://readersupportednews.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24999)
>  The Mayday PAC would emphasize small donors but when multiplied by our numbers (the so-called 99 percent of Americans), our funds could rival the amounts spent by Super-rich big donors (less than 1 percent) who have purchased the government they want.



###[Upstart: The ‘last’ SuperPAC: Aaron Swartz’s $7.3 million legacy to change U.S. democracy](http://upstart.bizjournals.com/entrepreneurs/hot-shots/2014/07/07/lawrence-lessig-superpac-aaron-swartz.html)
> By its Independence Day deadline, the "SuperPAC intended to end all SuperPACs" destroyed its $5 million goal, to elect politicians committed to overturning laws that allow unlimited campaign contributions.



###[NPR's Marketplace (RADIO):  Mayday PAC - The end of the Super PAC era?](http://www.marketplace.org/topics/elections/mayday-pac-end-super-pac-era)
> This past weekend, the Mayday PAC reached its fund raising goal of $5 million. Lessig plans to start the anti-Super PAC campaign for this year's House of Representative election.



###[Monadnock Ledger: Another win for our ‘Granny D’](http://www.ledgertranscript.com/home/12669736-95/another-win-for-our-granny-d)
> Started in May and June of 2014 as an experiment, the PAC has become a wild success, with fundraising goals — $5 million by July 4th — demolished in startling time.



###[New York Times, Upshot Blog: Money Is Raised - Now Lessig’s Super PAC Must Win](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/upshot/money-is-raised-now-lessigs-super-pac-must-win.html?_r=0)
> The “super PAC to end all super PACs” reached its fund-raising goal in just over two months, but now comes the hard part: winning elections.



###[Washington Post: Meet the anti-super PAC that is raising big bucks on deadline](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/07/07/meet-the-anti-super-pac-that-is-raising-big-bucks-on-deadline/)
> What do you get when you form a super PAC that opposes the overwhelming power of super PACs in campaigns? You get Mayday PAC

> Mayday PAC...surpassed its goal of raising $5 million by July 4. As of Monday afternoon, it said on its Web site that it raised more than $7.3 million.


###[Daily Dot: Lessig's Mayday PAC smashes $5M crowdfunding goal](http://www.dailydot.com/politics/lessig-super-pac-2016/)
> Fighting big money in politics was never going to be cheap. But that hasn’t stopped Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law School from fighting fire with fire.

> His grassroots Mayday campaign to bankrupt big money in politics has surpassed its $5 million crowdfunding target, and is eyeing a major upheaval in the 2016 congressional elections.



###[Slate: One Super PAC to End Them All, and Why It Could Beat Scott Brown](http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/07/07/one_super_pac_to_end_them_all_and_why_it_could_beat_scott_brown.html)
> Another slogan might be "oh, wow, we're pulling this off." I talked to Lessig and McKinnon slightly before they succeeded in hitting their second-round goal of $5 million in donations and pledges.



###[ABA Journal: Law prof’s super PAC reaches fundraising goal; aim is new campaign-finance system](http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/law_profs_super_pac_reaches_fund-raising_goal_aim_is_new_campaign-finance_s/)
> A super PAC created by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig has reached its $6 million fundraising goal.



###[Ring of Fire: End-All Super PAC hits fundraising goal, looks to end all Super Pacs](http://ringoffireradio.com/2014/07/end-all-super-pac-hits-fundraising-goal-looks-to-end-super-pacs/)
> Through a letter on the website, the founder of Mayday.us and Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig announced that the Super PAC had reached its goal of $5 million, despite public skepticism that the effort could do so.



###[Venture Beat: Anti-super PAC fund Mayday PAC hits its $5M crowdfunding goal](http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/06/anti-super-pac-fund-mayday-hits-its-5m-crowdfunding-goal/)
> With all the excitement (or craziness) happening over the holiday weekend, you may have missed that the “super PAC to end all super PACs” MAYDAY.US successfully hit its $5 million funding goal.



###[Huffington Post: The Super PAC To End All Super PACs Reaches Major Fundraising Goal](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/05/mayone-lawrence-lessig_n_5560355.html)
> In an Independence Day letter, Harvard professor and Mayday.us founder Lawrence Lessig announced that the super PAC had reached its $5 million grassroots goal with 49,490 supporters.



###[TIME: ‘PAC to End PACs’ Hits $5 Million Funding Goal](http://time.com/2958516/mayday-pac/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fswampland+TIME%3A+Swampland)
> The upstart Mayday PAC that seeks to reduce the influence of money in politics has crossed its fundraising goal of $5 million



###[Vox: Larry Lessig raised $5 million to reform campaign finance. Now he needs GOP support.](http://www.vox.com/2014/7/5/5872701/can-larry-lessig-defeat-polarization)
> On July 4, Harvard law professor Larry Lessig successfully completed a $5 million crowdsourced fundraising drive for his Mayday PAC to promote public financing of elections.



###[TechCrunch: Lessig’s Mayday Hits $5M Fundraising Goal To Elect Pro-Campaign Finance Reform Politicians](http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/05/mayday-campaign-finance-reform/)
> Lawrence Lessig’s Mayday.us just raised a lot of money…to help get the money out of politics by campaigning to elect five politicians who will enact campaign finance reform.



###[re/code: Campaign Reform Group Backed By Tech Heavies Hits Fundraising Goal](http://recode.net/2014/07/05/lawrence-lessigs-campaign-reform-group-gets-backing-from-tech-heavies/)
> A political action committee created by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig to back candidates opposed to cronyism in campaign finance, reached its $5 million crowdfunding goal on the last day of its campaign



###[Mediaite: Super PAC to Get Rid of Super PACs Raises $5M](http://www.mediaite.com/online/super-pac-to-get-rid-of-super-pacs-raises-5m/)
> Today, Mayday.us reached its second milestone: a crowdfunding campaign raised over $5 million in less than a month.



###[VentureBeat: Q&A with the Harvard law professor raising millions to end financial political corruption](http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/06/anti-super-pac-fund-mayday-hits-its-5m-crowdfunding-goal/)
> On the eve of his potential victory, I had some questions about why Lessig thinks he can overturn one of the most pervasive aspects of American democracy.



###[Inquisitr: George Takei Urges Massive Fan Base To Donate To Mayday PAC](http://www.inquisitr.com/1334571/george-takei-urges-massive-fan-base-to-donate-to-mayday-pac/)
> Social media superuser and Star Trek alum George Takei has departed from his usually humorous banter to give fans on Facebook and Twitter an uncharacteristically serious message about politics and democracy.


###[Washington Post: How to use a super PAC to kill super PACs](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/07/02/how-to-use-a-superpac-to-kill-superpacs/)
> Whatever your politics, chances are you're among the vast majority of Americans who believes there's too much money in the whole business.

> The case for Mayday PAC...is that your preferences inevitably wind up getting distorted by money in ways that ultimately don't serve your interests



###[Bloomberg TV (VIDEO): Can Mayday PAC Reduce Money Influence in Politics?](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/can-mayday-pac-reduce-money-influence-in-politics-1ItTjaZCS92mXfrmLV6j2w.html)
> Megan Hughes reports on the Mayday Super PAC launched by Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig.



###[TechCrunch: Lawrence Lessig’s Campaign Reform Push Comes To A Head This Friday](http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/01/lawrence-lessigs-campaign-reform-push-comes-to-a-head-this-friday/)
> I caught up with Lessig via email to ask him a few questions about the effort, especially in regards to how lowering the influence and heft of money in our politics would impact the technology industry.



###[TakePart.com: Lessig’s Real Goal - Change the Entire Constitution](http://www.takepart.com/video/2014/06/30/mayday-pac-video)
> This year, in the name of truly celebrating and preserving our precious democracy, some of the country's leading minds and celebrities are asking Americans to get excited about campaign finance reform.

> According to Lessig, a Harvard Law scholar, our government is broken because of the money in politics and its sources.



###[The New American: Lessig’s Real Goal - Change the Entire Constitution](http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/18608-lessigs-real-goal-change-the-entire-constitution)
> Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has been beating the drums for a Constitution Convention for many years.

> Once he succeeds with five new members of Congress, he expects to raise more money to finance more candidates willing to carry out his plan.



###[Boing Boing (VIDEO): Larry Lessig explains how Mayday.US can win the fight on corruption](http://boingboing.net/2014/07/01/larry-lessig-explains-how-mayd.html)
> Slashdot recorded a must-watch video with Lawrence Lessig about the Mayday.US anti-PAC that is raising money to elect politicians who'll enact meaningful campaign finance reform.



###[Tech Dirt: One Last Chance To Join With Thousands Of Others To Help Limit The Influence Of Money In Politics](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140703/14072327776/awesome-stuff-one-last-chance-to-join-with-thousands-others-to-help-limit-influence-money-politics.shtml)
> Okay, we've written about Larry Lessig's Mayday PAC a bunch of times already, including when it launched, when it hit its first target of $1 million

> No one knows for sure if Lessig's plans will have any real impact, but I know of no one who has put as much time, thought and effort into tackling the problem of the corrupting influence of money in politics.



###[WIRED: Open government is vital, but beware the deep state](http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/07/ideas-bank/micah-sifry)
> Back in January, Lawrence Lessig, a leader of the free-culture movement, spent two weeks marching the length of New Hampshire...trying to spark a national movement

> Lessig hoped to galvanise citizens to demand campaign-finance reform, to free our representatives from their dependence on private money to run their campaigns.



###[Coin Telegraph: How Bitcoin Could Help Stem Political Corruption in the US](https://cointelegraph.com/news/111990/how-bitcoin-could-help-stem-political-corruption-in-the-us)
> But the difference with Mayday PAC is that they are completely crowd-funded and, more importantly, they are now accepting Bitcoin for donations.

> Opening up to Bitcoin could prove to be a very smart move, especially if the PAC supports candidates who are in favor of an open internet and privacy



###[KALW Radio: How can we break the stranglehold of big money in politics?](http://kalw.org/post/your-call-how-can-we-break-stranglehold-big-money-politics-0)
> On today's Your Call, we’ll rebroadcast a conversation we had with Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig about his mission to get money out of politics.



###[Reddit: Lawrence Lessig and Jack Abramoff Ask Me Anything](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/29nq9p/lawrence_lessig_and_jack_abramoff_here_we_both/?utm_source=All+Supporters+List&utm_campaign=773ef8bf51-Ask_Lessig_Anything7_2_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5000256311-773ef8bf51-166042461)
> We're excited to discuss corruption, money, and its effect on the future of politics, technology and the Internet, so...
Ask us anything!



###[VOX (Video): Lawrence Lessig's Super PAC wants to kill Super PACs](http://www.vox.com/2014/6/30/5857450/lawrence-lessigs-super-pac-wants-to-kill-super-pacs)
> Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig believes he’s found a way to fight — and possibly end — superPACs forever. But first, he needs to form a SuperPAC of his own. Lessig talked to Ezra Klein about how big money influences policy, why he launched his own superPAC, and how to make politicians listen — really listen — to ordinary Americans.



###[Motherboard: How Aaron Swartz Helped Inspire the Super PAC to End All Super PACs](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-aaron-swartz-helped-inspire-lawrence-lessigs-mayday-pac)
> Several years ago, the late internet activist Aaron Swartz had a conversation with one of his mentors, Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, that would change Lessig’s future. At the​ time—2007—​Lessig was one of the nation’s top authorities on internet policy and digital copyright law. But at a tech conference in Germany, Swartz challenged Lessig to reevaluate his life's mission.

> “How do you ever think you’re going to make any progress on these issues so long as there’s this corruption in the way our political system works?” Swartz asked, Lessig recalled in a recent interview with Ben Wikler, a radio host and political activist who worked closely with Swartz.



###[The Boston Globe: Super PAC aims to end all other super PACs](http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/28/harvard-law-professor-starts-super-pac-end-all-super-pacs/XwFwcP750RzWvbjNYAyz9M/story.html)
> The mission is simple, if not counterintuitive: Design a super PAC to destroy all super PACs, huge political action committees that allow for unlimited contributions from people, corporations, associations, and unions.

> Then, Mayday PAC plans to use the lessons learned to get a large slate of candidates into office in 2016, with the aim of 218 in the House of Representatives and 60 in the Senate.



###[The New American: Article V Promoter Praises Democratic Leadership in Movement](http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18591-article-v-promoter-praises-democratic-leadership-in-movement)
> As recently as March 21, 2014, both Lessig and Meckler spoke at the same event, this time at the Citizen University’s (motto: “Let’s Do Democracy”) Annual National Conference in Seattle; Lessig’s topic was “How to Start a Rebellion,” featuring “bottom up change and passionate cross-partisan political rejuvenation.”

> Lessig’s connection with CFA and Mark Meckler is not so much an endorsement for a BBA or limited government as it is an opportunity for Lessig to work alongside conservatives toward the common goal of a constitutional convention.


###[NJ.com, Opinion: Small political donations can have big impact in Super PAC fight](http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/06/opinion_small_political_donations_can_have_big_impact_in_super_pac_fight.html)
> Politics and money always have been cozy together, but in this new unregulated era, the politics of money may well reign over the politics of the many. We face the prospect of government becoming a vehicle of the wealthy donor class. The inequalities of our economy, which we accept as necessary for capitalism, could become the standard of our democracy.

> The Mayday PAC (mayone.us) is a bold new experiment. Launched May 1, the first-round goal was to raise $1 million from ordinary Americans in one month. Nearly 13,000 individuals contributed more than $1 million in 13 days.



###[Data Center Knowledge: Lessig’s Mayday Super PAC Scales in Google’s Cloud](http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/06/26/lessigs-mayday-super-pac-runs-on-googles-auto-scaling-cloud/)
> Both Lifshin and Olds said the Mayday site was saved so quickly by high-caliber engineers who worked for free because many engineers care deeply about open source and support Lessig. The Harvard Law School professor is a well-known political activist who in addition to fighting for campaign finance reform devotes a lot of time to the issues of copyright and net neutrality.

> The Super PAC has recently managed to secure support from a number of Silicon Valley heavyweights. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Union Square Ventures managing partner Fred Wilson, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman have all joined the campaign



###[Deseret News: America's hidden primary, and what you can do about it](http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865605817/Americas-hidden-primary-and-what-you-can-do-about-it.html)
> In an unsettling TED talk, Lawrence Lessig informs us that ours is far from the ideal. Of course, we don’t live in a single-party state that filters candidates for mock elections, but we do have a filter; a hidden primary where our influence is anything but equal. And Lessig, a Harvard law professor and former young Republican, explains how it works and what we can do about it.



###[UPWORTHY: A Hollywood Actor Who’s Had Enough Of Our Broken Government Is Actually Doing Something About It (VIDEO)](http://www.upworthy.com/a-hollywood-actor-whos-had-enough-of-our-broken-government-is-actually-doing-something-about-it?c=ufb1)
> Maybe you’re a Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan or maybe not, but what he’s talking about in the video is something the vast majority of Americans desperately want: a government that actually works for the people.



###[The Good Fight: Lawrence Lessig, Aaron Swartz, and the Super PAC to end Super PACs](http://thegoodfight.fm/episodes/25-lawrence-lessig-aaron-swartz-and-the-super-pac-to-end-super-pacs)
> What if you’re doing the wrong thing with your life? That’s what a 20-year-old Aaron Swartz asked Lawrence Lessig. In response, Lessig transformed his career, ending the work on Internet law that had made him famous and turning his sights on the impossible-seeming fight against money in politics.

> On this wrenching, fascinating episode of The Good Fight, Lessig tells his story, lays out his plan, and explains how Mayday emerged from the desperation Lessig felt after Aaron Swartz’s tragic suicide in 2013.



###[The Register: Web moguls ask YOU to stump up big money to STOP big money from winning in Washington](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/24/mayday_super_pac_us_politics_tech_moguls/)
> In an irony-laden crowdsourcing venture called Mayday, web entrepreneurs including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffmann are hoping to solve the “big money problem” in US politics.

> “In 2012, 132 Americans funded 60 per cent of the Super PAC money raised in that election cycle,” Lessig said. “That number will go up in 2014. Imagine it goes up by a factor of 250. Even then, the funders of these Super PACs will represent no more than .01 per cent of America.



###[TechCrunch: Silicon Valley Moguls Push For Campaign Finance Reform](http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/24/silicon-valley-moguls-push-for-campaign-finance-reform/)
> The industry contributed more than $51.3 million to PACs, parties and candidates, which is not far behind the gas and oil industry’s $56.6 million worth of contributions. Let’s not forget the industry’s role in some major super PACs, such as Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us. And Napster co-founder Sean Parker has been making large political donations for years.

> If Mayday PAC actually focuses as Lessig says on electing candidates based on their campaign finance platforms, it could create reforms in Washington.



###[Newsweek: Mayday PAC - The Super PAC Built to Destroy Super PACs](http://www.newsweek.com/new-super-pac-aims-bring-down-super-pacs-256003)
> According to Lessig, Silicon Valley is uniquely positioned to change the power of wealth in American politics. Unlike the finance or energy industries, Silicon Valley has yet to mature to the point where it seeks to boost profit through legislative reforms.

> In some sense, Mayday’s approach seems paradoxical: taking money from one major industry and pitting it against another (the devil you know, and all that). But as Lessig points out, Mayday isn’t aimed specifically at pro-Silicon Valley legislation, like that pertaining to visas or net neutrality. “That wouldn’t be a very principled or interesting PAC,” he says. “The only thing the Mayday PAC is trying to do is get legislation passed to change the way elections are funded.”



###[Latest.com: Harvard Professor Creates Crowdfunded Super PAC to Destroy Super PACs](http://latest.com/2014/06/harvard-professor-creates-crowdfunded-super-pac-to-destroy-super-pacs/)
> According to an interview with VICE, Lessig was one of the people behind the publication of the Congressperson’s daily schedule, which blocked out four hours per day for fundraising. Lessig said, “members of Congress were like, ‘What the hell? Why am I here? I didn’t want to become a telemarkter.’”

> In fact, Lessig says this is why the latest Congress has been the most unproductive of our history, because while it is very difficult to pass legislation, it can be very easy to block it. The corruption doesn’t come in these legislators writing bills for their donors – that’s what lobbyists do – it is in their ability to block legislation their donors don’t like.



###[NBC News: Tech Moguls Raise Cash to Fight Washington's 'Big Money Problem'](http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tech-moguls-raise-cash-fight-washingtons-big-money-problem-n139426)
> A group of influential Internet moguls aim to fix what they refer to as the "big money problem" in Washington politics by, well, raising cash. Forming a Super Political Action Committee (PAC) called Mayday, the executives hope to raise $12 million by the midterm elections in November in hopes of supporting candidates who are committed to changing how elections are financed.



###[Boing Boing: Joseph Gordon-Levitt wants YOU to support Mayday.US and fight Congressional corruption - VIDEO](http://boingboing.net/2014/06/23/joseph-gordon-levitt-wants-you.html)
> Joseph Gordon-Levitt has recorded this video message endorsing the MAYDAY.US super PAC, through which Lawrence Lessig and supporters are raising $5 million in small-money donations to elect lawmakers who will promise meaningful reforms of campaign finance law to curtail the undue influence of money on politics.



###[Talking Points Memo: Launching A Super PAC To Fight Super PACs](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/launching-a-super-pac-to-fight-super-pacs)
> The core problem with our democracy today is that we have outsourced the funding of campaigns to the tiniest fraction of the 1 percent. As congressmen spend between 30 and 70 percent of their time raising campaign cash, they focus their efforts on no more than 150,000 Americans.

> The cost of the 2014 pilot was estimated at $12 million. And so on May 1, we launched an experiment to see whether we could raise money through a Kickstarter campaign for at least half. We set an initial goal of $1 million in 30 days. Insiders thought this was impossible, but with the help of 13,000 supporters, with a median contribution of just $50, we crossed the $1 million mark in 13, not 30, days.



###[CrowdFund Insider: The Woz Lends Voice to Crowdfunding Super Pac Mayday](http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/06/42416-the-woz-lends-voice-to-crowdfunding-super-pac-mayday/)
> Cultural icon Steve Wozniak, part of the magic behind the founding of Apple, has spoken up in support of the Mayday PAC founded by Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig.

> Lessig and his co-conspirators want to crowdfund their very own, non-partisan Super Pac to fight fire with fire.  They already nailed their first goal of raising $1 million and now they want to raise $5 million – by the 4th of July.



###[Slashdot: Steve Wozniak Endorses Lessig's Mayday Super PAC - VIDEO](http://politics.slashdot.org/story/14/06/20/1521202/steve-wozniak-endorses-lessigs-mayday-super-pac)
> Steve Wozniak, co-found of Apple Computer, has come out to endorse Lawrence Lessig's MAYDAY PAC in an animated audio recording. Mayday.US, (formerly MayOne.US) is Lessig's crowd-funded (citizen-funded!), kick-started Super PAC to end all Super PACs. In the video, Wozniak points out that we're never going to get anywhere on issues important to the Internet community and technology advocates if we don't fix the root cause of corruption



###[Truth-Out: 99 Rise on the Move: The Occupation of Sacramento](http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/24438-99-rise-on-the-move-the-occupation-of-sacramento)
> The 99 Rise California March for Democracy is out to demonstrate that money can be kicked out of politics and ordinary people can make it happen. The march departed Los Angeles on May 17, 2014 and will arrive in the state capital, Sacramento, on June 22 with plans to occupy the Capitol building if their demands are not met.  As they march through central California, they combat disempowerment by speaking practically about what can be done to get money out of politics.

> 99 Rise is working with over 30 different organizations, including Move On, Dream Defenders, Wolf PAC, San Francisco Green Party and several Occupy groups, and has been endorsed by Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Lessig, Dolores Huerta and several other individuals.



###[Valley Wag: Q&A with Larry Lessig on Why You Should Have Faith in Silicon Valley](http://valleywag.gawker.com/q-a-with-larry-lessig-on-why-you-should-have-faith-in-s-1592426125)
> The story of how a young programmer named Aaron Swartz convinced celebrated academic Lawrence Lessig that no political progress could be made without first reforming campaign finance is now part of Silicon Valley lore. In May, Lessig launched a radical initiative to address the issue: MAYDAY, a SuperPAC that secured funding from two Silicon Valley billionaires in order to curtail the influence of big money.

> "It makes me sick to imagine the amount of time [presidential candidates] spend raising money, but the institutional [issue] we have to do something about quite dramatically is Congress. Because Congress is increasingly an institution that spends all of its time in the business of raising money as opposed to the business of trying to figure out what the right thing to do is."



###[Policy Innovations: Of Moonshots and Slingshots](http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/000282)
> Is it still possible for a government to move against the market to favor society? The May Day PAC established by Lawrence Lessig takes the stance that U.S. electoral politics are entirely controlled by corporate interests due to the realities of campaign financing: Politicians who do not attract lavish spending by corporations and wealthy individuals simply cannot succeed under the current rules.

> The situation may be considerably more complex than that (the Republican-Democrat split in America is as much cultural as political), but legitimate questions can certainly be asked about the ability of the U.S. government to go against U.S. business interests.



###[The Atlantic: Campaign-Finance Reform Has to Be Cross-Partisan](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/campaign-finance-reform-has-to-be-cross-partisan/372983/)
> The vast majority of Americans—more than 90 percent in recent polls—believe it “important” to “reduce the influence of money in politics.” But is the business model of the reformers actually consistent with winning reform?

> This is the fair but hard question raised by the strategy planned by Senate Democrats this summer to force a vote on New Mexico Senator Tom Udall’s proposed constitutional amendment to give Congress the power “to regulate the raising and spending of money” in elections. Forty-three Senate Democrats have cosponsored the resolution. Zero Republicans have. Zero is the same number of Republicans who have joined any of the proposed constitutional amendments now floating about in Congress to, as they are described, “reverse Citizens United.”



###[Salon: Cronies, corruption and cash: Lawrence Lessig on why we need a super PAC to end all super PACs](http://www.salon.com/2014/06/18/teaching_us_to_hate_each_other_lawrence_lessig_on_his_super_pac_to_end_all_super_pacs/)
> This week, Salon called up Lessig in order to discuss some of the details of the Mayday PAC and the vexing problem of money and democracy in America more generally. We also touched on Eric Cantor’s recent shocking defeat and how inequality causes political polarization. Our conversation is below and has been edited for clarity and length.

> The aim of the super PAC is to win a Congress committed to fundamental reform by 2016. Fundamental reform in the way elections are funded. To do that, we want to run a pilot in 2014 in five districts to demonstrate that this issue matters to voters and to put Congress on notice in 2016 that we’ll be back in a much bigger way.



###[Huffington Post: How to Tell If Your Member of Congress Is a Crony Capitalist](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/how-to-tell-if-your-membe_b_5506312.html)
> It's a big-money game that has made Americans cynical about politics. A 2011 Global Strategy Group poll found that 71 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of Democrats believed that "money buys results in Congress."

> Elected officials are so dependent on raising this cash that they have become "shape shifters," in the words of Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig: "They constantly adjust their views in light of what they know will help them to raise money."


###[Daily KOS: Americans Can Do Anything](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/17/1307608/-Americans-Can-Do-Anything)
> Amending the Constitution sounds audacious. Particularly when a proposed amendment to guarantee women equal rights failed. But it can be done. It has been done. Recently too.

> And more. They’ve even got the backing of some rich people. On May 1, Lawrence Lessig, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center on Ethics at Harvard, launched the Mayday PAC, which is a super PAC to end all super PACs.



###[Seacoast Online: We voters have more power than we realize](http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20140614-OPINION-406140305)
> Be encouraged! Even though 96 percent of voters agree that money is a problem in politics (they're right), 91 percent don't believe it can be fixed (they're wrong). We voters have more power than we think we do! On Tuesday, a congressional primary race in Virginia was won by a newcomer to politics who raised just over $200,000 for his campaign. His losing opponent (the incumbent) raised over $5 million.

> In his book "Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It," Lawrence Lessig proposes nonpartisan plans to end it. It's a 300-page book, but let me wet your appetite with one paragraph from page 266. "First, we convert the first $50 dollars that each of us contributes to the Federal Treasury into a voucher. Call it a 'democracy voucher.' Each voter is free to allocate his or her democracy voucher as he or she wishes. Maybe $50 to a single candidate. Maybe $25 each to two candidates. Maybe $10 each to five candidates. The only requirement is that the candidate receiving the voucher must opt into the system.



###[Huffington Post: To End School Shootings, Tackle Government Corruption](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charlotte-hill/to-end-school-shootings-gun-control_b_5489209.html)
> But the sad reality is that we're not going to get more gun control until we've fixed a deeper, more pervasive problem: political corruption. I'm not talking about "money exchanged under the table" corruption, but rather what Harvard Professor Larry Lessig terms "dependence corruption" -- the totally legal dependence that our elected officials have upon the powerful interests that make (and, crucially, break) their campaigns.

> This is the cold, hard reality: Any member of Congress who supports gun control legislation today faces a tidal wave of NRA money aimed squarely at kicking them out of office. In the 2012 federal election cycle, the NRA spent nearly $20 million to defeat politicians -- both Democrats and Republicans -- who voted in favor of gun regulations, and to elect politicians who championed unfettered access to guns.



###[Sacramento Bee: Marchers against ‘big money’ politics reach Merced on way to Sacramento](http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/11/6477265/marchers-against-big-money-politics.html)
> Activists marching from Los Angeles to Sacramento to oppose “big money corruption” in political campaigns reached Merced on Wednesday.

> About a dozen people are making the entire march, and they are usually joined by local supporters as they trek north, Newkirk said. The march has also had notable participants like political activist Lawrence Lessig and United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta.



###[Venture Beat: Can crowdfunding end the corrupt influence of money in U.S. politics? $1.5M in donations say yes.](http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/08/can-crowdfunding-end-the-corrupt-influence-of-money-in-u-s-politics-1-5m-in-donations-say-yes/)
> The MAYDAY.US fund is being billed as the “super PAC to end super PACs” because its main purpose is to install only new congressional members that want to get rid of this kind of unchecked spending.

> MAYDAY.US raised $1 million in its first two weeks from over 12,800 individual contributors. MAYDAY.US told VentureBeat once this first goal was met, it saw  large donations from a handful of influential technology business leaders,



###[Tech Dirt: Crowdfund Our Way To Reducing The Influence Of Money In Politics](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140606/17472727506/awesome-stuff-crowdfund-our-way-to-reducing-influence-money-politics.shtml)
> Larry Lessig's MAYDAY.US. And, yes, we already wrote about this at the beginning of May when the first phase launched, and again when it hit the $1 million goal -- and then secured the second million in matching funds. However, the project has now moved into phase two, where the goal is to raise (and match) $5 million, instead of just $1 million. Already it's around half a million dollars, so there's a long way to go, but it's a good start.

> And, once again, the goal here is to raise this total of $12 million ($1 million + $1 million match in May, and then $5 million + $5 million match in June) as a test for a much larger effort. I've seen too many overly cynical folks say "$12 million isn't enough to change politics." And you're right. But that's not the goal. This is $12 million to be used in specific races as a proof of concept for a much larger moonshot.



###[The Boston Globe: Amanda Palmer pledges support for Mayday PAC](http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2014/06/14/amanda-palmer-pledges-support-for-lessig-mayday-pac/2Dw514xV9VbIEy6tVPZaPP/story.html)
> Singer Amanda Palmer, who knows a thing or two about raising money, is helping Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig in his bid to create a “super PAC to end all super PACs.” Monday, Palmer, armed with a ukulele, is doing an interactive online conversation/concert on www.wizeo.me. The performance is a benefit for Mayday PAC, a group begun by Lessig and GOP media strategist Mark McKinnon in hopes of raising $12 million that could be used to target candidates opposed to inhibiting the political influence of wealthy donors.

> Palmer, who has a wildly devoted following, used the crowd-funding website Kickstarter to raise $1.2 million to finance her last CD and tour. Mayday PAC already has some deep-pocketed patrons, including TED curator Chris Anderson, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and Brad Burnham, managing partner of Union Square Ventures, which has funded the likes of Twitter, Kickstarter, and Tumblr.



###[St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Editorial: A 'Star Wars' program for super PACs](http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-a-star-wars-program-for-super-pacs/article_e62adb04-81d3-51fa-a9f2-b406148c3ca4.html)
> A Harvard law professor who is pushing a U. S. constitutional convention has told Illinois lawmakers there are built-in protections against extremes. During a committee hearing, State Rep. Scott Drury (D-Highwood) asked, “These delegates … can say, we think that the best way to address Citizens United is to get rid of the First Amendment – is that a possibility that can come out of this convention?”

> Lawrence Lessig agreed it’s possible, and then posed a question of his own: “Can you imagine 38 states ratifying that?  And, I would suggest, it’s impossible to imagine that there wouldn’t be at least 13 of them that would stop that amendment.”



###[Alton Daily News: Professor Pushes for Constitutional Convention](http://altondailynews.com/news/details.cfm?clientid=17&id=130639#.U54ExfldVyw)
> A Harvard law professor who is pushing a U. S. constitutional convention has told Illinois lawmakers there are built-in protections against extremes. During a committee hearing, State Rep. Scott Drury (D-Highwood) asked, “These delegates … can say, we think that the best way to address Citizens United is to get rid of the First Amendment – is that a possibility that can come out of this convention?”

> Lawrence Lessig agreed it’s possible, and then posed a question of his own: “Can you imagine 38 states ratifying that?  And, I would suggest, it’s impossible to imagine that there wouldn’t be at least 13 of them that would stop that amendment.”



###[Boing Boing: Jason Alexander endorses the anti-corruption Mayday PAC](http://boingboing.net/2014/06/11/jason-alexander-endorses-the-a.html)
> Brian says, "Jason Alexander (of stage, screen & Seinfeld) has decided to endorse the Mayday PAC." Mayday.US is the super PAC that Lawrence Lessig founded to fight campaign finance corruption by raising money to send politicians to Congress if they'll promise to get the money out of politics.



###[Gawker: Lawrence Lessig Is Here to Talk About Money, Politics, and Democracy](http://gawker.com/lawrence-lessig-is-here-to-talk-about-money-politics-1588595648)
> Harvard law professor and public intellectual extraordinaire Lawrence Lessig has a bold idea: raising money in order to take money out of politics. He's here to answer your questions about his plan to start a super PAC with the express purpose of destroying super PACs, and saving democracy.

> "We want to spend big money to end the influence of big money," Lessig has said. "Ironic, I get it. But embrace the irony. Because with enough of us, we can easily build a Super PAC bigger and more effective than the Super PACs of the billionaires."



###[The Daily Beast: Our New SuperPAC Is Going to Change American Politics for $12 Million](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/06/our-new-superpac-is-going-to-change-american-politics-for-12-million.html)
> “Impossible.” As the Army used to say, “The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.” And while we’re not opposed to impossible campaigns, we believe it critical that this movement to “restore democracy” also try the merely “difficult.” For long before two-thirds of Congress will propose an amendment to the Constitution and three-quarters of the states will ratify it, Congress could radically change the way campaigns are funded, through a simple majority vote.

> This is the hard work that Congress should do. It’s easy to hold hearings on resolutions that everyone knows will fail. It takes leadership to force debate on ideas that no one believes can pass—but must pass. That’s the leadership that Lyndon Johnson demonstrated, both in the Senate in 1957, and as President, when he forced a reluctant South to finally accept equal rights. That’s the leadership that this nation needs again, but that, in the grandstanding of D.C. partisanship, seems truly “impossible.”


###[CNN: What I'm reading: The core problem with our democracy](http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/09/what-im-reading-the-core-problem-with-our-democracy/)
> “[T]his, we believe, is the core problem with our democracy today: that we have outsourced the funding of campaigns to the tiniest fraction of the 1 percent,” write Lawrence Lessig and Mark McKinnon in the Daily Beast. “As members of Congress spend between 30 percent and 70 percent of their time raising campaign cash, they focus their efforts on no more than 150,000 Americans – 0.05 percent of the population, about the same number who are named Lester. And for SuperPACs, the numbers are even tinier. In the 2012 election cycle, 132 Americans contributed 60 percent of the SuperPAC money spent in all races. Congress has become dependent upon this tiny slice of the 1 percent, but in no conceivable way does this tiny fraction represent America.”


###[MSNBC: All In With Chris Hayes (VIDEO)](http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the-super-pac-to-end-all-super-pacs-274585155931)
> Chris Hayes talks to the man behind a new type of super PAC, one that aims to return some sanity to campaign financing...and maybe just end this whole super PAC thing.



###[TownHall.com: The Game is Rigged, Regardless of Who’s in Charge](http://townhall.com/columnists/cathyreisenwitz/2014/06/09/the-game-is-rigged-regardless-of-whos-in-charge-n1848566/page/full)
> There’s too much money in politics, right? Lawrence Lessig has a new plan to solve an old problem. He wants to end money’s outsize influence on the political process, which subverts democracy and drowns out the masses to do the bidding of the well-to-do few.

> Campaign finance reform comes down to arguing about who gets to decide who gets to be umpire of a game which is, at its core, rigged. And it’s rigged in favor of the rich. Electoral politics is mostly cage matches in the gladiator arena they use to distract us. It’s the circus, and entitlements are the bread.



###[Concord Monitor: Take the battle against big money to the candidates](http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/12216823-95/my-turn-take-the-battle-against-big-money-to-the-candidates)
> Big money flowing into our elections is moving us ever further from Lincoln’s ideal: government of the people, for the people and by the people. This problem is not new, but what had been a tide is becoming a flood. With each campaign, our elected officials grow more dependent on big donations from special interests and less dependent on us, their constituents.

> We’ve reached a tipping point for reform. The Great Recession that began in 2007 exposed government and private institutions as deeply flawed and unable to protect ordinary people. The Supreme Court, contrary to common sense and the beliefs of most Americans, has declared that corporations are people and that enormous spending by a billionaire on politics is speech legally equivalent to actual speech by an ordinary citizen.

> Lessig and other leaders of this fight acknowledge it is a tough one. But they have reminded me that when millions of Americans across the political spectrum get riled up and demand change, Congress will listen and will act, and in due course, so will the Supreme Court.



###[Huffington Post Live: VIDEO](http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/tech-titans-mayday-pac-lawrence-lessig/538e413802a7602d01000266)
> Coverage on Professor Lessig's efforts, starts at 12:00



###[Sunlight Foundation Blog: National News Section](http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/06/05/today-in-opengov-652014/)
> The Mayday PAC, set up to fight the influence of big money in politics, has raised a lot of money from small donors...but it has also raised more than $1 million (and hopes to raise at least $5 million more) from a few large donors. The large donors, many of them tech entrepreneurs, are matching funds raised in smaller chunks.



###[Connecticut Post Blog: Super PAC whose mission is to lessen the influence of big money in politics by targeting congressional candidates opposed to campaign finance reform](http://blog.ctnews.com/kantrowitz/2014/06/05/super-pac-whose-mission-is-to-lessen-the-influence-of-big-money-in-politics-by-targeting-congressional-candidates-opposed-to-campaign-finance-reform/)
> If successful, Mayday PAC would go from inception to a war chest of over $12 million in just 60 days. That money will then fund campaigns in five congressional districts yet to be announced, targeting candidates that oppose campaign finance reform. It is part of a two election cycle plan to hold candidates accountable to voters on the issue of money in politics and win a Congress committed to enacting campaign finance reform by 2016. If successful in the 2014 cycle, the effort would be expanded for the 2016 elections.

> This experimental new effort will show that regular people are deeply motivated to demand changes that loosen the grip of big money on politics and government. People “commit” by pledging a contribution anywhere between $5 and $10,000, and their commitment is collected only if the Mayday PAC reaches its fundraising target by its deadline.



###[Politico: Mayday PAC secures matching pledges](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/mayday-pac-secures-matching-pledges-107398.html?hp=l6)
> The PAC raised $1 million in grass-roots donations in its first 13 days in existence and has now set a $5 million target by July 4. If Mayday PAC reaches that goal, Lessig and McKinnon have lined up the support of a handful of wealthy donors — mostly from Silicon Valley — to kick in an additional $5 million in matching funds.

> If the renewed push is successful, the PAC would have a $12 million war chest for the 2014 cycle. Though that is a modest sum in the world of big-money politics, the PAC would invest in five targeted congressional races. The campaigns have yet to be announced or determined.



###[CrowdFund Insider: Super PAC Created to “End All SuperPACs” Launches Phase 2 after Meeting 1st Crowdfunding Goal](http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/06/41050-super-pac-created-to-end-all-superpacs-launches-phase-2-after-meeting-1st-crowdfunding-goal/)
> If you happen to care about things like non-rich people having a say in who holds federal office, you should really go make your pledge to Mayday right now. But since I suspect most readers are pretty skeptical at this point, let me take you through the completely hard-boiled, non-utopian case for supporting the project, which roughly amounts to the following: Mayday, or something like it, turns out to be our last best hope for reducing the massively outsized influence of the 1 percent over public policy.

> I arrive at this conclusion by way of some simple armchair-Marxist analysis, which holds that no significant reform can happen unless some very powerful, very rich interest group decides it has a stake in it. Health care reform had the insurance companies; Wall Street reform had deep-pocketed financial institutions, who saw an opportunity to kneecap their less-regulated competitors.



###[Washington Post: Tech leaders back super PAC aimed at curbing big money in politics](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/06/04/tech-leaders-back-super-pac-aimed-at-curbing-big-money-in-politics/)
> A group of high-wattage technology entrepreneurs and investors have donated six-figure checks to a super PAC aimed at curtailing the influence of big money in politics, bringing new financial firepower to the fight over election spending.



###[The New Republic: The One Way to Harness Silicon Valley's Self-Interest for the Good of the Country](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117996/how-silicon-valley-can-bring-us-campaign-finance-reform)
> If you happen to care about things like non-rich people having a say in who holds federal office, you should really go make your pledge to Mayday right now. But since I suspect most readers are pretty skeptical at this point, let me take you through the completely hard-boiled, non-utopian case for supporting the project, which roughly amounts to the following: Mayday, or something like it, turns out to be our last best hope for reducing the massively outsized influence of the 1 percent over public policy.

> I arrive at this conclusion by way of some simple armchair-Marxist analysis, which holds that no significant reform can happen unless some very powerful, very rich interest group decides it has a stake in it. Health care reform had the insurance companies; Wall Street reform had deep-pocketed financial institutions, who saw an opportunity to kneecap their less-regulated competitors.



###[PR Newswire: Crowd-Funded Super PAC Created to "End All SuperPACs" Launches Phase 2 after Meeting Initial Fundraising Goal](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/crowd-funded-super-pac-created-to-end-all-superpacs-launches-phase-2-after-meeting-initial-fundraising-goal-261803491.html)
> "The influence of big money over our political process is worse than it's ever been, and it's evident from the complete dysfunction in Washington," said Professor Lawrence Lessig. "Mayday PAC's success will prove that there are enough people willing to invest in sending Congress the message that it is time for fundamental campaign finance reform." Mark McKinnon adds, "We want a government that works for all of us, not simply the wealthy who bankroll campaign contributions and Super PACs."

> This experimental new effort will show that regular people are deeply motivated to demand changes that loosen the grip of big money on politics and government. People "commit" by pledging a contribution anywhere between $5 and $10,000, and their commitment is collected only if the Mayday PAC reaches its fundraising target by its deadline.



###[Huffington Post: Tech Titans From Both Parties Get Behind Super PAC To End All Super PACs](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/04/mayday-pac-tech_n_5442230.html)
> The Mayday PAC, launched on May 1, announced a crowd funding plan to raise $12 million to back supporters of publicly financed elections in 2014. If people help raise $1 million, with contributions of $10,000 or less, in one month, Lessig said wealthy supporters would kick in another $1 million. The group raised its first $1 million by the middle of May.

> The big supporters providing the matching $1 million include LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder and president of Thiel Capital Peter Thiel, TED curator Chris Anderson, Union Square Ventures partners Brad Burnham and Fred Wilson, Women's Entrepreneurial Festival co-founder Joanne Wilson, and Schooner Capital founder Vin Ryan.


###[The Atlantic: A Real Step to Fix Democracy](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/a-real-step-to-fix-democracy/371898/)
> In January, Gallup found that Americans from across the political spectrum picked the failure of “government” as the top problem facing America today. The vast majority link that failure to the influence of money in politics. Yet more than 90 percent of us don’t see how that influence could be reduced. Washington won’t fix itself, so who else could fix it?

> It turns out the framers of our Constitution thought about this problem precisely. Two days before the Constitution was complete, they noticed a bug. In the version they were considering, only Congress could propose amendments to the Constitution. That led Virginia’s George Mason to ask, what if Congress itself was the problem?



###[Fast Company: Want Money Out Of Politics? Put Some Money Into Politics With Lawrence Lessig's Super PAC](http://www.fastcoexist.com/3031141/want-money-out-of-politics-put-some-money-into-politics-with-lawrence-lessigs-superpac)

> “In 2016, number one, there will be fewer fights that we have to have, because people will get on the right side of this issue just out of fear,” Lessig says. “And number two, we’ll have a whole bunch of people more interested in investing, because they see a potential return here.”

> “[Vouchers] would radically change the business model of fundraising overnight,” Lessig says. “You would not have candidates spending their time talking to the tiniest fraction of the 1%. They’d be thinking about the ways to attract a wide range of contributions from everybody who has a voucher.”


###[LA Times: Harvard professor's 'super PAC' aims to end power of 'super PACs'](http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-harvard-professor-super-pac-big-money-politics-20140523-story.html)
>  Is it possible to create a "super PAC" that would end the power of super PACs by drawing enough Americans into the system to limit the influence of big money in politics? And is it possible to get voters excited about a subject as dry as campaign finance?  Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig is leading a crusade to answer both those questions with a yes.

>  If the Mayday PAC is able to take out five members of Congress this cycle “who are on the wrong side of this issue,” Lessig said, “then when 2016 comes around, magically a whole bunch of members of Congress would be on the right side of this issue, and we would have a narrower range of people that we would have to be going after, and we would have very good data



###[The Huffington Post: The Super PAC To End All Super PACs Gets Off To A Super Start](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/15/mayone-lawrence-lessig_n_5333020.html)

> WASHINGTON -- On May 1, Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig launched what he calls
  a "super PAC to end all super PACs."  Lessig, one of a new breed of campaign
  finance reformers, wants to change the corrupted system by which politicians
  now raise money for their campaigns.

> The irony is to get money out of politics, reformers must raise money of their own.
  On that measure, Lessig's new     organization has gotten off to a super start.



### [Washington Post Opinions: Matt Miller: “A ‘money bomb’ for 2016″](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/matt-miller-a-money-bomb-for-2016/2013/05/29/c01d0e88-c85c-11e2-8da7-d274bc611a47_story.html)


> Just when you were fed up with our petty, craven politics and were ready to
  write off the next few years as a circus of filibusters, gridlock and
  investigations, comes an idea so simple yet subversive that it offers a
  glorious ray of hope.

> Call it [Lawrence Lessig's](http://www.lessig.org/) "money bomb."  It’s an
  ingenious plan to make the drive for small-dollar publicly funded elections a
  central issue in 2016. With a little luck, the Harvard law professor’s idea
  could help save the republic.



### [Moyers & Company: "Lawrence Lessig Has a 'Moonshot' Plan to Halt Our Slide Toward Plutocracy"](http://billmoyers.com/2014/04/25/lawrence-lessig-has-a-moonshot-plan-to-halt-our-slide-toward-plutocracy/)

> Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig, the crusader for campaign finance reform, feels
  that his fellow reformers don’t think big or boldly enough to inspire the kind
  of grassroots campaign that might break elite donors’ stranglehold on
  America’s political system.

> In a recent piece in [*The
  Atlantic*](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/campaign-finance-and-the-nihilist-politics-of-resignation/360437/),
  Lessig argues that public cynicism about the prospect of deep reform actually
  working is the only thing keeping widespread outrage at our slide toward
  plutocracy in check. And he thinks that only a “moonshot” campaign — an
  ambitious, collective, national effort “unlike anything they’ve seen before” —
  can “crack this cynicism” and usher in a more democratic system.



### <a href="http://time.com/84556/lawrence-lessig-superpac/" target="_blank">Time: Campaign Finance Reformer Launches Super PAC to End Super PACs</a>

> Mayday PAC was already 8 percent of the way toward its goal by Thursday
  afternoon with more than $75,000 pledged and nearly 31 days left to reach its
  target.

> To say Mayday PAC faces an uphill fight is an understatement. Proponents of
  serious campaign finance reform face strong opponents in both parties, and the
  Supreme Court and lower courts have issued rulings in recent years striking
  down or throwing into doubt a wide array of restrictions on political
  spending.

> If the idea behind Mayday PAC sounds absurd, that’s by design. Cynicism and
  defeatism about government run so deep through American politics, Lessig
  believes, that the only way to “crack this cynicism” is with an idea so
  exceedingly ambitious—a “moonshoot,” he calls it—that people might be roused
  to get behind it.

> “We must show Americans something unlike anything they’ve seen before,”
  Lessig&nbsp;<a style="color: #0c97d2;"
  href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/campaign-finance-and-the-nihilist-politics-of-resignation/360437/">writes</a>.



### <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/05/01/3433006/mayday-super-pac-launches-to-end-super-pacs/" target="_blank">ThinkProgress: Anti-Dark Money Activist Lawrence Lessig Launches A Super PAC To End Super PACs</a>

> <a
  href="http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf"
  target="_blank">Recent studies</a> have found that wealthy Americans’
  influence over politics has grown significantly over the past few
  decades. Just a few hours after the launch, the Super PAC had raised nearly
  $50,000 — 5 percent of its $1 million goal.



### <a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/88825/there-s-a-new-super-pac-to-end-all-super-pacs-and-it-could-radically-change-politics?utm_source=policymicTWTR&amp;utm_medium=main&amp;utm_campaign=social" target="_blank">PolicyMic: There’s a New “Super PAC to End All Super PACs” — And It Could Radically Change Politics</a>

> **So far, it’s working.** In just a few days, with hardly any publicity,
  they’ve managed to raise over $350,000 dollars with a short-term goal of $1
  million.



### <a href="http://on.msnbc.com/1iospFz">MSNBC: Ronan Farrow Daily, 5/06/2014</a>

<p style="text-align:center"><a href="http://on.msnbc.com/1iospFz"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-10167" src="../images/msnbc.png" alt="msnbc" width="640" height="472"></a></p>

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### <a href="http://www.upworthy.com/a-brilliant-plan-to-give-billionaires-who-try-to-buy-us-elections-a-taste-of-their-own-medicine?c=fea" target="_blank">Upworthy:&nbsp;A Brilliant Plan To Give Billionaires Who Try To Buy U.S. Elections A Taste Of Their Own Medicine</a>

> How bad has the money-in-politics situation gotten? A new study by researchers
  at Princeton and Northwestern universities found that, and I’m quoting
  directly here: “When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of
  organized interest groups are controlled for,&nbsp;<em>the preferences of the
  average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically
  non-significant impact</em>&nbsp;upon public policy.”



### <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/09/_n_5295544.html" target="_blank">Huffington Post:&nbsp;A Brilliant Plan To Give Billionaires Who Try To Buy U.S. Elections A Taste Of Their Own Medicine</a>



### <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4uRSMTCJxw" target="_blank">WGBH News/Greater Boston: Lawrence Lessig’s New Approach to Campaign Finance Reform</a>

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