Letter to Prof. Lessig: Not from a Birmingham jail

Dear Professor Lessig,

I got your email yesterday about the second NHRebellion walk across New Hampshire, which starts on Saturday.

I will be staying put in the less harsh clime of Mountain Brook, Alabama, but I want to keep you apprised of the work I have been doing, which will continue during the ten day walk in New Hampshire cold and snow, and beyond.

The 114th United States Congress convenes today. I would have liked to have engineered a "thunderclap" of tweets or emails to greet our country's Senators and Representatives gathered in Washington today. That was not within my capacity, but over the past few days I sent a couple hundred tweet messages to MAYDAY supporters and others. A tweet message I used was: "To the 114th United States Congress: Please reduce the influence of money in politics."  My tweets contained a link to http://maydaysupporters.blogspot.com/2015/01/to-114th-united-states-congress.html. I have had over 350 page views of that link, plus upwards of eighty to a hundred retweets and favoritings of my tweets. Not a "thunderclap", but something.

In December, you said, "We can’t wait for the next election cycle – we must begin now [to recruit members of Congress to support reform]."

I can only contribute minisculely to recruiting members of Congress as MAYDAY desires, but I am doing and will do what I can.

My new Congressman Gary Palmer, whose election in the Alabama 6th Congressional district was certain after he won the Republican primary run off election last July, has been mightily bugged by me to speak about the need for reform (or not, if he believed reform was not needed), but Mr. Palmer has steadfastly declined to respond. I doubt that Mr. Palmer can be recruited to support fundamental reform.

In the Alabama legislative delegation in Washington, Senators Sessions and Shelby are Republicans, six of the seven Representatives are Republicans, and Terri Sewell of the 7th district is a Democrat. I doubt whether any of the eight Republicans in the Alabama legislative delegation will support reform as MAYDAY desires, but I will continue my work on them.

Your December 9th email refers to recruiting voters in "targeted districts" to ask their representatives to co-sponsor fundamental reform. I think I am the original "tweet bomber"  and I have solicited persons in other states or other districts to "tweet bomb" into a a state or district in which they don't live. I continue to advocate that. Your December 9th email says you will ask for advice and help from supporters. I suggest that MAYDAY urge tweet bombing into "targeted districts" by persons outside the targeted districts.

MAYDAY's basic goal of electing a reform minded Congress remains in place. I will probably try to run as an independent Congressional candidate in the 2016 in the the Alabama 6th Congressional district.

Yesterday, I spoke with Steve Stokes, who was an independent candidate for Congress in the California 28th Congressional district in 2014. Steve is thinking seriously about trying again in 2016. Steve and I discussed a couple of things related to MAYDAY. 

We discussed that Steve ran a multiple issue campaign, and that I ran a single issue ("root issue") campaign. I acknowledged that a single issue campaign may be a practical impossibility. That does not change that a multiple issue campaign risks losing support from large numbers of voters who may have strong views opposite the candidate's positions on other issues. It is a real quandary.

Also, Steve and I discussed Congressional candidates or would be candidates coming to the MAYDAY Facebook pages to introduce themselves to MAYDAY supporters and engage in discussion there about their positions about reform. I said to Steve that my understanding is that MAYDAY still has in place a decision made last year to prohibit Congressional candidates or would be candidates from posting on the MAYDAY Facebook pages.

I said it seemed very unhelpful to MAYDAY's plan for electing a reform minded Congress to prohibit candidates from posting on the MAYDAY Facebook pages to seek support there, with a view to those offering their support to communicate that to other voters. Steve and I discussed that the"coordination" rules may inhibit what MAYDAY is prepared to allow from candidates on the MAYDAY Facebook pages.

May you find ways to keep warm next week.

Sincerely (from my Mountain Brook home),

Rob