Tech Wonks Take Wiki Approach to Capitol Hill Transparency

Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law professor and a cyberspace legal guru, will team up with Joe Trippi, a nuts-and-bolts political operative in Washington -- and San Jose State University alumnus -- who pioneered Internet-based campaigning for Howard Dean in 2004. Trippi was also a senior adviser to John Edwards' presidential campaign.

The Change Congress project, which Lessig will announce in a speech Thursday in Washington, is designed to mobilize Internet activism to tackle what he called "the distorting influence of money in politics."

Main Objectives

Members of Congress and candidates will be asked to support four goals: reject contributions from lobbyists and political action committees; ban spending on pet projects known as "earmarks;" work for public financing of campaigns; and back transparency for the work of Congress.

"The presidential campaigns this year have mobilized thousands of people who want change, but the next president alone won't be able to change Congress. That's where we need fundamental reform," Lessig said. He thinks the surge in online political activism and blogging -- from the right and left -- can be turned on Congress.

Lessig recently decided against a run for a U.S. House seat to succeed the late Rep. Tom Lantos of San Mateo, Calif., after consulting with Trippi and others.

Roots in Creative Commons

The new project is modeled on the Creative Commons campaign Lessig started to help shape intellectual property rules on the Internet, seeking a balance between private rights and public use. Content creators use Creative Commons to tag their writing, video and photos with alternative copyright badges.

Using the "lessons of Wikipedia," Lessig said the project will be collaborative and Web-based, trying to engage volunteer researchers to collect information on candidates' positions and publicize them.

"The idea is to approach this in a Silicon Valley way, getting the largest number of people involved. This will be different from other Washington advocacy groups," Lessig said.

Groups from Common Cause to Taxpayers for Common Sense have had only limited success in changing the ways that Congress and lobbyists do business . Past efforts to ban or limit PAC (political action committee) contributions have failed. Exposure of such pork barrel projects as the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska have led to new rules requiring members to make their earmark requests public.

Tough Road Ahead

Bringing real reform to Congress will meet stiff resistance, said Norman Ornstein, longtime analyst and author of several books on Congress. He did see hope that a "Web-based effort bringing more people to these issues could make a difference."

Ornstein also warned that some reform goals can be too simplistic. Members of Congress who give up PAC money may spend more time seeking individual contributions, he said, and public financing of campaigns "will be no panacea" unless fair rules for competitors are worked out.

Reform in Washington has been a major theme in the presidential campaign. Democrat Barack Obama stresses the need to curtail lobbyists' influence. Republican John McCain wants to ban congressional earmarks.

Lessig is optimistic that there's "widespread support for reform in Congress from members who don't like spending half their time raising money for the next campaign."

"This won't happen in one or two election cycles, but I think we'll be at a tipping point soon," he said.