Southern Methodist University’s Underwood Law Library’s 50th Anniversary Celebration

A Minoritarian Democracy

03/31/22

Keynote at SMU Dedman School of Law celebrating the Underwood Library's 50th anniversary, 31 March 2022. This talk frames both the problem with the US government and the problem with us. Essentially where my thinking is, as of now, and especially focused on the bit at the end — that our (boomer generation) has failed our kids, and that the problems we leave are

Building a Coalition that Will WIN

WOLF-PAC VIRTUAL WARRIOR WORKSHOP 2021

12/04/21

Money has become too influential in United States elections. Our government serves the interests of wealthy campaign donors instead of most Americans. For over 10 years, Wolf-PAC has been working to fight this systemic corruption and, while we haven't yet achieved our ultimate goal, we have learned one vital lesson. Our elected officials will never fix this system until an

Democracy: a Harvard Law School Lecture Series

Session 3: Social Media and Democracy

11/15/21

A Nov. 15 panel on Social Media and Democracy featuring Nate Persily (Stanford Law), Jamal Greene (Columbia Law), and Tristan Harris (Center for Humane Technology), moderated by Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig. In the last few years, politicians, activists, academics, among many others, have become increasingly concerned about the role of social media in American democracy. The concerns are myriad. They

DECODING the Dems' Plan for HR1

06/18/21

Harvard Law Professor Larry Lessig speaks with Cenk Uygur on The Conversation about the current state of voting rights legislation.

Social Media and the First Amendment

06/16/21

Talk given to the American Bar Foundation, 2021 June 16

Seinfeld's Jason Alexander Asks: "What's The Deal With H.R. 1?"

06/04/21

Seinfeld's Jason Alexander speaks with Harvard Law School's Lawrence Lessig and the Brennan Center's Elizabeth Hira about the most important fair elections bill in generations (the For The People Act). This event, which took place on June 4th, was co-sponsored by Equal Citizens, The Brennan Center for Justice, RepresentUs, End Citizens United, Common Cause, the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition, and Open Democracy

Larry Lessig on the For the People Act

TYT The Conversation

05/28/21

Harvard Law Professor Larry Lessig speaks with David Shuster on The Conversation about why passing the For the People Act (H. R. 1) is so important.

The United States: Another Minoritarian Nation

TEDxWarwick

04/08/21

Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig powerfully makes the case that the United States is becoming a minoritarian nation. He argues that in order for the United States to truly be a majoritarian democracy, there are several legislative changes which need to take place. Only these changes will allow American society to flourish. After transforming intellectual-property law with his Creative Commons innovation, he has devoted

A More Perfect Union: Ideas to Improve Our Democracy

The Aspen Institute

12/10/20

This SOF Digital Discussion features Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School; Michele Moody-Adams, Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia University; and Yascha Mounk, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University; in conversation with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday and co-host of NPR’s morning news podcast Up First. Guided by Garcia-Navarro,

Regulating campaign spending would root out corruption in our electoral process

Business Casual

10/13/20

We know there’s an ungodly amount of money tied up in politics, much of it collected in the campaign finance stage. What we often don’t know is where it comes from and what its aims are. What if we could shift the way we interpret and regulate campaign spending? That kind of shift might just root out deep-seated corruption in our electoral process.

They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy

Politics & Prose

11/22/19

Lawrence Lessig discusses his book, "They Don't Represent Us", at Politics and Prose. In this non-partisan analysis of today’s political divisiveness, Lessig identifies unrepresentativeness as the one problem that underlies the others. He sees it both in institutions—such as the media’s response to narrow interests rather than to those of the wider citizenry—and in the people, who are uninformed about the issues. Lessig,

They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy

Brennan Center for Justice

11/21/19

In his new book, "They Don’t Represent Us," Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig charts the ways in which the fundamental institutions of our democracy respond to narrow interests rather than to the needs and wishes of the nation’s citizenry. At this event, Lessig explored the causes and consequences of “unrepresentativeness” and called for significant reforms including public campaign funding, a reformed Electoral College, and

What's Next for American Democracy?

National Constitution Center

11/20/19

Lawrence Lessig, author of the new book They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy, Daniel Epps of Washington University in St. Louis Law School, and Howard Rich, chairman of U. S. Term Limits, discuss the future of elections, term limits, calls for a constitutional convention, and other reforms, including how to address gerrymandering after the Supreme Court’s decision in Rucho v. Common Cause

Lessig on Why "They Don't Represent Us"

WGBH Greater Boston

11/19/19

In his new book, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig argues that American democracy is broken not only because of partisanship in Washington, but also because the American system of government does not properly ensure representation under the ideal of "one person, one vote. " To discuss what ails us — and how to potentially fix it — Jim Braude was joined by Lessig to discuss 'They

The Electoral College

Harvard Law School

10/19/19

Keynote Luncheon with Professor Lawrence Lessig & Political Consultant Stuart Stevens.

How Democracy Survives the Internet

Wikimedia Deutschland

09/12/19

Lawrence Lessig, Mitgründer Creative Commons und Professor der Rechtswissenschaften an der Harvard Law School, sprach am 12. September 2019 mit John Weitzmann, Leiter Politik & Recht und Syndikus bei Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. Wir fragten Lessig am Tag vor seiner Keynote "How Democracy survives the Internet: The lessons Wikipedia can teach" auf der Konferenz "Das ist Netzpolitik! " in der Berliner Volksbühne: -

We Need Candidates Committed to Reforming the System

NowThis News

05/23/19

This expert says Obama and Trump failed to ‘clean up Washington’ the way they promised to—but there’s one woman on Capitol Hill he thinks is taking on the challenge.

On what we should know — and what we must inspire the politicians to do

Reclaim our Democracy Talk

04/29/19

Talk given to Reclaim our Democracy, Concord, MA, on April 29, 2019. The talk is about 30 minutes; there is a question and answer session at the end.

Democracy's Greatest Challenge: The Demos

04/27/19

EuropaCamp 2019 Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, beim EuropaCamp der ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius auf Kampnagel, Hamburg

Unrig Summit: Saturday Morning Plenary

Unrig Summit 2019

03/30/19

Lessig speech time stamp: 14:25 Spoken word artist Regie Gibson will open Saturday’s programming at Unrig. Hosted by actor Max Carver, and Jen Johnson of RepresentUs, Part 1 of the Morning Plenary will feature short talks from: * Tequila M. Johnson, Co-Founder and Vice President, The Equity Alliance; * Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Professor; and * State Representative Ruth Buffalo, North Dakota House of Representatives.

What's Wrong with a Little Transparency?

Unrig Summit 2019

03/29/19

What's Wrong with a Little Transparency? While the political reform community continues to push for greater government transparency and stronger campaign finance disclosure laws, some say these reforms would go too far. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) views donor privacy as critical to free speech, and the Congressional Research Institute sees pitfalls in the rise of legislative transparency. Panelists from those two

Lessig: Anti-Trust Laws Can Fix Social Media Bias

The Joe Rogan Experience

12/13/18

Lessig on Bridging the Media Gap between Left and Right

The Joe Rogan Experience

12/13/18

Does the Electoral College Disenfranchize Voters?

The Joe Rogan Experience

12/13/18

An essentially unrepresentative representative democracy

Harvard Law School Fall Reunion 2018

10/26/18

Keynote address, Harvard Law School Fall Reunion 2018 Luncheon

Lessig on His Legal Fight to End "Winner-Take-All" Rules in Electoral College

WGBH Greater Boston

09/04/18

Is the Electoral College broken? So argues Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, a former presidential candidate and the founder of the non-profit group Equal Citizens, who along with people like former Mass. Governor Bill Weld, is leading a series of lawsuits to fix it. Lessig joined Jim Braude to discuss.

"How the People Speak"

2018 Holberg Symposium

06/06/18

Abstract: "We must attend to the technical conditions of democratic understanding: how do the people know, and how might that knowledge be improved. In this talk, Lessig will map the ways in which the epistemologies of democratic understanding have changed, and how we might productively respond to those changes. Against a trend arguing that we should listen less to the people, Lessig describes how

Getting to the Root of the Problem: Lawrence Lessig

Mixed Mental Arts, ep. 346

01/23/18

During the presidential election of 2016, one man dared to stand up to speak the truths that needed to be spoken. He was (of course) denied a forum. Mixed Mental Arts aims to remedy that situation. That's right! Lawrence Lessig returns!

Unequal as Funders

TEDxBeaconStreet November 2017

11/18/17

At the core of our constitution is the ideal of equality. Two centuries of compromise has let us forget that. If we’re to recover a representative democracy, we must defend again its simple ideal — that all citizens are equal. Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School. Prior to rejoining the Harvard

Equal We Are Not

TEDxDirigo

11/04/17

We have allowed a radical inequality to evolve within our political system; we don’t see it, but we must repair it if we’re to have a democracy that might count. Professor Lawrence Lessig explains that our democracy is failing, not because there are too many Republicans in Congress, or too many Democrats, but because the basic commitment of a representative democracy — political equality —

Is It Time to Reform the Electoral College?

WGBH Greater Boston

10/10/17

After the 2016 election, plenty of people called for the major changes to the electoral college. Among them was Harvard Law professor and former Democratic candidate for president, Lawrence Lessig. He joined Jim Braude to discuss how his non-profit, Equal Citizens, wants to change the way the United States votes.

Does your vote for president really count?

10/10/17

If you don't happen to live in one of the 14 battleground states in the U. S. , your vote for president simply doesn't matter. And if you're a Democrat in Texas or a Republican in California, your vote doesn't even count. We can fix this. We have a solid strategy and the best legal team possible.

Here's how social media hurts democracy

CNBC Power Lunch

09/18/17

Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School, discusses whether Facebook and other social media giants need regulation following the revelation of Russian ad spending during the election.

How digital destroyed democracy

TEDxBerlinSalon

07/02/17

Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School. Prior to rejoining the Harvard faculty, Lessig was a professor at Stanford Law School, where he founded the school’s Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia

Political leadership in times of digital populism

TEDxBerlinSalon

01/11/17

Lawrence Lessig on "Political leadership in times of digital populism" at TEDxBerlinSalon "Leading in the Digital Age".

Where Are You?

Talk at Phillips Exeter Academy

11/20/15

Talk to the students at Phillips Exeter Academy, November 20, 2015

Our democracy no longer represents the people. Here's how we fix it.

TEDxMidAtlantic

09/25/15

Lessig makes the case that our democracy has become corrupt with money, leading to inequality that means only 0. 02% of the United States population actually determines who's in power. Lessig says that this fundamental breakdown of the democratic system must be fixed before we will ever be able to address major challenges like climate change, social security, and student debt. This is not

Equality

TEDxVilnius

04/23/15

At the core of the ideal of democracy is conception of equality, practiced today almost no where in any major modern democracy. In this talk, Professor Lessig shows how the American democracy has betrayed this ideal, and the costs to the world from this failure. Lawyer and activist Lawrence Lessig spent a decade arguing for sensible intellectual property law, updated for the digital age.

How Public Power Can Defeat Plutocrats

PBS Moyers & Company

11/21/14

This week, Lawrence Lessig and Zephyr Teachout return to talk about the corrupting influence of money in politics — a subject both have studied as scholars — and how they’re fighting to reform the system.

Can We Reclaim Democracy?

Google Zeitgeist

09/15/14

Lawrence Lessig talks about the dysfunctional world of the US government, and how a state that cannot be guided is a state that will eventually crash. As a solution, he is using "big money" to end the influence of big money. . . and acknowledges the irony. Google Zeitgeist is a collection of talks by people who are changing the world. Hear entrepreneurs,

Of course it matters

TEDxKC

08/28/14

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Lessig’s talk is a call to action — we must demand election funding reform or we are complicit in the corruption. “Of course it matters,” Lessig implores us. Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, and director of

The unstoppable walk to political reform

03/01/14

Seven years ago, Internet activist Aaron Swartz convinced Lawrence Lessig to take up the fight for political reform. A year after Swartz's tragic death, Lessig continues his campaign to free US politics from the stranglehold of corruption. In this fiery, deeply personal talk, he calls for all citizens to engage, and offers a heartfelt reminder to never give up hope.

Putting Political Corruption on Ice

PBS Moyers & Company

02/14/14

[Time stamp: 11:10] David Simon, creator of “The Wire” and “Treme,” is back to talk about how moneyed interests have purchased the American government and activist Lawrence Lessig leads a trek through frozen New Hampshire to raise awareness of political corruption.

Better campaign finance, better politics

MSNBC

12/19/13

Author and Harvard Law Prof. Lawrence Lessig on why a better political environment means needing to fundamentally change the way we fund elections.

We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim

02/25/13

There is a corruption at the heart of American politics, caused by the dependence of Congressional candidates on funding from the tiniest percentage of citizens. That's the argument at the core of this blistering talk by legal scholar Lawrence Lessig. With rapid-fire visuals, he shows how the funding process weakens the Republic in the most fundamental way, and issues a rallying bipartisan cry that

Jamie Dimon, smartest guy in the room?

MSNBC UP with Chris Hayes

06/15/12

Up host Chris Hayes and his panelists - including University of Minnesota professor Karen Ho, Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins, and CNBC contributor Dan Dicker - break down JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's Senate testimony this week.

A way out of the darkness of America's broken campaign system

MSNBC Rachel Maddow

10/13/11

Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law professor and author of the new book, "Republic, Lost," talks with Rachel Maddow about the way to rid American politics of the destructive influence of big money campaign contributions.

Conference on the Constitutional Convention: Lawrence Lessig Keynote

Harvard Law School

09/24/11

HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig, founder of Change Congress, delivered his "Keynote from the Left" at the Conference on the Constitutional Convention on Sept. 24, 2011.

OVERHEARD Lessig Pt 3

PBS Overheard with Evan Smith

03/09/11

Evan Smith interviews Lawrence Lessig, a celebrated academic, acclaimed author, and an energetic activist whose great cause is rights and freedoms in the digital sphere. He's also increasingly an advocate for accountability in institutions.

OVERHEARD Lessig Q&A

PBS Overheard with Evan Smith

03/09/11

Lawrence Lessig takes questions from our audience.

OVERHEARD Lessig Pt 4

PBS Overheard with Evan Smith

03/09/11

Evan Smith interviews Lawrence Lessig, a celebrated academic, acclaimed author, and an energetic activist whose great cause is rights and freedoms in the digital sphere. He's also increasingly an advocate for accountability in institutions.

OVERHEARD Lessig Pt 1

PBS Overheard with Evan Smith

03/09/11

Evan Smith interviews Lawrence Lessig, a celebrated academic, acclaimed author, and an energetic activist whose great cause is rights and freedoms in the digital sphere. He's also increasingly an advocate for accountability in institutions.

OVERHEARD Lessig Pt 2

PBS Overheard with Evan Smith

03/09/11

Evan Smith interviews Lawrence Lessig, a celebrated academic, acclaimed author, and an energetic activist whose great cause is rights and freedoms in the digital sphere. He's also increasingly an advocate for accountability in institutions.

Citizens: The Need and the Requirements

TEDxSanAntonio

12/27/10

About this talk: Starting with Thoreau and moving through the cost of sugar versus corn and diabetes, Lawrence Lessig gives a compelling — and visually breathtaking — presentation on the impact of campaign cash on the policies of our nation. His message: We need citizens to take back our democracy. About Lawrence Lessig: Professor Lessig is the director of the Edmond J. Safra

Of by 4

TEDxBoston

08/16/10

Of the People, By the People, For the People: How Campaign Funding Should be Redefined so that Citizens, Not Corporations, Elect Leaders

Change Congress

Talks at Google

02/19/09

Professor Lawrence Lessig visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his latest project: Change Congress, whose mission is to reform the campaign finance system and limit the influence of special interests in Washington. This event took place on February 19, 2009, as part of the Policy Talks@Google series. Lawrence Lessig is the cofounder of Change Congress, and has long been a leading thinker