Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig has announced his run for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
After exceeding his $1M crowdfunding goal, Lessig announced his candidacy.
“I think I’m running to get people to acknowledge the elephant in the room,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “We have to recognize — we have a government that does not work. The stalemate, partisan platform of American politics in Washington right now doesn’t work.”
According to ABC:
If elected, he says he will be the first “referendum president,” promising to serve only as long as it takes to pass his Citizens Equality Act of 2017 — a bill aimed at reforming campaign finance,voting rights, and Congressional representation. Once the bill is passed, Lessig said he would then step down, handing over the reins to his vice president.
Lessig said that his VP must be “consistent with the values of the Democratic Party” and should be able to excite the voter base. Though he didn’t name a running mate, his website has a vice presidential poll featuring Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO), Jon Stewart, and Hillary Clinton.
“If you have seven other issues that you’re running on, that of course you get into Washington and everybody thinks your mandate is one of this or one of that,” he said. “That’s not going to make it possible to take this on.”