Lawrence Lessig in Sunday Political Talk Show interviews during 2015
On Civil Rights:
LGBT rights secured constitutionally; now work on statute
Lessig, whose immediate goal is to boost his poll numbers to qualify to make his case on stage at the debates, made his pitch to the LGBT community in an interview with the Washington Blade. A campaign that "celebrates and rallies around the importance
of equality," Lessig predicted, would have a positive effect for those who are pushing in a particular area of equality rights, such as LGBT people."Obviously, the community has earned an extraordinary victory over the course of the last 20 years,"
Lessig said. "It's the most successful equality movement in the history of equality movements in just the sense of the speed with which attitudes were reversed and the law brought about to recognize the importance of granting equal status as
a constitutional matter. And now, the fight is going to be as a statutory matter, to secure the same kind of equality protections that other groups such as women and people discriminated on the basis of race have."
Source: Washington Blade 2015 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Oct 7, 2015
On Civil Rights:
Aggressively support transgendered social recognition
Asked what should be done about the rash of anti-trans violence in this country that has left 20 transgender people dead this year alone, Lessig said, "I think it makes sense to have the hate crime law focus on transgender as a category of hate that
could trigger higher penalties."Lessig said the issue of transgender rights hits close to home because he has a transgender person in his family: His wife's cousin is married to a transgender man. "This is something that's very present in our life as
they raise their own family and have to live in a world which doesn't quite understand them," Lessig said. "I think we should be as aggressively supportive of achieving social recognition of the equality of all humans regardless of these
characteristics." Lessig said his wife's female cousin was in a same-sex relationship with a woman before he knew her family, but was around for this family decision to transition. "He was not yet a 'he' when it began," Lessig said.
Source: Washington Blade 2015 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Oct 7, 2015
On Energy & Oil:
Stop subsidizing oil companies & their pollution
I believe America needs urgent and important reform: it needs climate change legislation.
It needs to stop subsidizing oil companies, and stop tolerating their pollution.
Source: Politico Magazine 2015 article by 2016 presidential hopeful
Oct 1, 2015
On Gun Control:
Keep machine guns away from the sorts who massacre kids
America needs sane gun laws that keep machine guns away from the sorts who would massacre school children. But unlike Clinton and Sanders and O'Malley, I'm willing to tell America the truth about these urgent and important needs.
That truth is this: The policies that these politicians are pushing are fantasies. Not because we can't afford them. If we can afford a trillion dollar war that has only made America less safe, we can afford a real social security system.
Source: Politico Magazine 2015 article by 2016 presidential hopeful
Oct 1, 2015
On Immigration:
Promise the hardest workers that they can become citizens
America needs to respect the equality of citizens and end--finally--the second class status that too many Americans know. It needs an immigration policy that promises some of the hardest working
Americans that they can become citizens. But unlike Clinton and Sanders and O'Malley, I'm willing to tell America the truth about these urgent and important needs.
Source: Politico Magazine 2015 article by 2016 presidential hopeful
Oct 1, 2015
On Jobs:
America needs a minimum wage that is a living wage
I believe America needs urgent and important reform: it needs a minimum wage that is a living wage, it needs to respect the equality of citizens and end--finally--the second class status that too many Americans know.
It needs a health care system that Americans can afford. It needs to stop subsidizing oil companies, and stop tolerating their pollution. It needs the courage to stand up to the banks, it needs to restore safety to the financial system.
Source: Politico Magazine 2015 article by 2016 presidential hopeful
Oct 1, 2015
On War & Peace:
Our trillion dollar war made America less safe
Unlike Clinton and Sanders and O'Malley, I'm willing to tell America the truth about urgent and important needs. That truth is this: The policies that these politicians are pushing are fantasies. Not because, as the Wall Street Journal might argue, we
can't afford them. Of course we can afford them. If we can afford a trillion dollar war that has only made America less safe, we can afford a real social security system, or a health care system that doesn't sell out to pharmaceutical companies.
Source: Politico Magazine 2015 article by 2016 presidential hopeful
Oct 1, 2015
On Abortion:
I would veto a law defunding Planned Parenthood
One thing is to resolve an ambiguity some thing the referendum president raises: Am I president only for that one issue? No.
The other is to say what I would do with a long list of specific proposals.
That's the bit I meant by a trustee for the VP--to decide things that make the next administration as effective and successful as it can be--except to the extent it interferes with the task of passing the
CEA or is something I could not morally do.
E.g., Congress passes a law defunding planned parenthood. I'm against it. I'm sure the VP is against it. I exercise my power to veto it.
Source: Reddit.com 2015 comments by 2016 presidential hopefuls
Sep 24, 2015
On Families & Children:
Sexually abused by his choir teacher as a schoolboy
It was only 10 years ago, in a piece written for New York Magazine, that Lessig publicly revealed he had been sexually abused by his choir teacher while in school.
Reflecting on his time at boarding school, Lessig says others were certainly aware of what was happening to him and other boys.
But no one did anything. "The thing that was most striking to me about that experience was not so much the abuser," Lessig says. "It's the people around who could have picked up a phone, and who didn't."
It's a reality, Lessig asserts, that has shaped his thinking about "what is it about institutions and structures that brings out the best or the worst in people."
Source: Harvard Crimson 2015 article on 2016 presidential hopefuls
Sep 24, 2015
On Civil Rights:
I am a libertarian on free speech issues
Lessig said in 2006, "I am a libertarian in the context of free speech issues.
I believe there is something fundamentally wrong with regulation that can't be justified. So I am motivated by a desire to defend that freedom, and by a deep skepticism about regulations that interfere with that freedom."
Source: Religion News 2015 article on 2016 presidential hopefuls
Sep 8, 2015
On Families & Children:
2008:Criticized Catholic Church for immunity on sexual abuse
Lessig was a choirboy. As a kid, Lessig sang in his church choir in Williamsport, Pa., and went on to attend the nonsectarian
American Boychoir School in Princeton, N.J., where a choir director sexually abused him and other classmates. In 2006,
Lessig defended before the New Jersey Supreme Court a fellow alum, succeeding in stripping some immunity from nonprofits that fail to prevent abuse.
Lessig criticized the Catholic Church in 2008 for defending its own immunity, a move he said "will guarantee more kids are abused in the future," and accused the church of protecting its own self-interest during the clergy sex abuse scandal.
Source: Religion News 2015 article on 2016 presidential hopefuls
Sep 8, 2015
On Technology:
Free culture movement: oppose excessively strict copyright
Lessig is a founding father of the free culture movement, which opposes excessively strict copyright rules, on the grounds that they restrict creativity.
He co-founded Creative Commons to promote the free sharing of cultural content online and has served on the boards of Free Software Foundation, Software Freedom Law Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Source: Religion News 2015 article on 2016 presidential hopefuls
Sep 8, 2015
On Corporations:
We need a new law to take on Wall Street
Q: A supporter of President Obama could argue, the problems you raise about partisanship didn't prevent Dodd-Frank from being implemented, all kinds of reforms over the last four years.LESSIG: On Dodd-Frank, look, every Democrat is talking now
about how we have to go back and have a new law to take on Wall Street. But you can't take on Wall Street until you change the way campaigns are funded, because the biggest funder of campaigns in Congress is Wall Street.
Source: ABC This Week 2015 interviews of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Sep 6, 2015
On Health Care:
ObamaCare public option was compromised to special interests
Q: A supporter of President Obama could argue, the problems you raise about partisanship didn't prevent health care from being implemented.LESSIG: Yes, they could say that, but of course, you have to remember when health care was passed, we had a
super majority in the Senate and we had a majority in the House. And even health care had to make important compromises to the special interests so drug prices can't be negotiated because pharmaceutical companies said they would spend millions to defeat
Democrats and the public option that the president promised was thrown out the window when insurance companies said they would spend millions to defeat Democrats. So even the most important thing he did--and
I'm a big supporter of the president, he's been an amazing president--but the most important thing he did is compromised by the corrupt way in which we fund campaigns.
Source: ABC This Week 2015 interviews of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Sep 6, 2015
On Principles & Values:
Acknowledge elephant in the room: partisanship doesn't work
Q: Why exactly are you running?LESSIG: I'm running to get people to acknowledge the elephant in the room. We have to recognize we have a government that does not work. This stalemated, partisan platform of American politics in Washington right now
doesn't work. And we have to find a way to elevate the debate to focus on the changes that would actually get us a government that could work again, that is not captured by the tiniest fraction of the 1% who fund campaigns.
Q: So, campaign finance
reform, voting rights reform?
And also dealing with crazy way we have political gerrymandering where politicians pick the voters rather than the voters pick the politicians.
Q: And you're saying that if you win, if you become president and you
pass that platform, you'll resign?
LESSIG: That's right. Because what we need is a focus that could cut across partisan lines and say this is the mandate. The mandate is to achieve this fix to the corrupted system, to fix the democracy first.
Source: ABC This Week 2015 interviews of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Sep 6, 2015
Page last updated: Nov 30, 2021