MayOne: The SuperPAC to End All SuperPACs
In six months, the United States will vote a new Congress into power. But in this election, political speech means big money, and perhaps more than ever before.
We’re talking about super PACs, the new species of shadowy, tax-exempt groups that popped up after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision–the very kind of entities that can conceal their donor lists and legally launder hundreds of millions of dollars to influence political campaigns. But today, Harvard professor, Creative Commons co-founder, and activist Lawrence Lessig has launched his own super PAC, one “to end all super PACs,” as he put it in a passionate TED talk earlier this year.
It’s called MayOne. But unlike the archetypal super PAC, which relies on a small list of donors with deep pockets, Lawrence is pleading directly to the big, wide public to give what it can in the form of small donations. The challenge will be supersede the fundraising of super PACs, to create a super PAC so large that it can support enough successful candidates in the next two elections who want to pass what Lessig calls “fundamental reform.”
