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Politics & Current Affairs

Congress Is Corrupt

“Under our current system of campaign finance, there is a fundamental gap between the interests of voters and of contributors.” Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig on the Congress’ institutional corruption.

“The framers intended Congress to be ‘dependent upon the People alone.’ But the private funding of public campaigns has bred within Congress a second, and conflicting, dependency. As with an alcoholic mother trying to care for her children, that conflicting dependency does not change the good intentions of members of Congress—they still want to serve the public interest they thought themselves elected to serve. But as with an alcoholic mother trying to care for her children, that conflicting dependency distracts members from their good intentions, directing their focus more and more toward the challenge of raising money.”


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