Elections

Harvard Professor Larry Lessig To Explore Democratic Presidential Run

Alex Pappas Political Reporter
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It’s not Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, but a liberal Harvard professor might challenge Hillary Clinton for president.

Larry Lessig, known for railing against big money in politics, plans to announce Tuesday the formation of a committee to explore the possibility of running for the White House as a Democrat.

“Lessig will hold a press conference call to discuss his candidacy, which will concentrate entirely on fixing the corruption plaguing our political system and the need to make citizen equality the central issue of the 2016 Democratic Primary,” according to an email teasing his announcement provided to The Daily Caller.

The progressive Lessig famously founded Mayday PAC, described by the organization as “a crowd-funded Super PAC to end all Super PACs and the corruption of private money.”

Lessig recently re-tweeted a petition calling on him to enter the race.

“All the other choices are the same old politicians, with a few notable exceptions,” the petition reads, “but Lessig has walked the walk as a real reformer, not just talked the talk. Imagine a presidential debate where he could bring every question back to the issue of money in politics, making all the other establishment candidates squirm in their seats; now, that would definitely be a debate worth watching!”

His campaign is being called the Lessig Equal Citizens Exploratory Committee.

Late Monday, the committee released a video of Lessig talking about his campaign. He said he will run if he raises the necessary money and the leading candidate for president doesn’t make “this fundamental reform the first priority of their administration.”

“So here’s the idea we’re going to test: a referendum president,” Lessig says. “A candidate who runs for president making a single promise. That if elected, he will serve as long as it takes but only as long as it takes to pass fundamental reform to finally achieve citizen equality. Once that reform is passed, this president would step down. And the elected vice president would become president to fill out his term. The candidate is the referendum.”

 

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