Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and
political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at
Harvard Law School and the former director of the
Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at
Harvard University.
[1] Lessig was a
candidate for the
Democratic Party's nomination for
President of the United States in the
2016 U.S. presidential election, but withdrew before the primaries.
Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on
copyright,
trademark, and
radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded
Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally. Prior to his most recent appointment at Harvard, he was a professor of law at
Stanford Law School, where he founded the
Center for Internet and Society, and at the
University of Chicago. He is a former board member of the
Free Software Foundation and
Software Freedom Law Center; the Washington, D.C. lobbying groups
Public Knowledge and
Free Press; and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation.
[2]
As a political activist, Lessig has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a
Second Constitutional Convention.
[3] In May 2014, he launched a crowd-funded
political action committeewhich he termed
Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to
Congress who would pass
campaign finance reform.
[4] Lessig is also the co-founder of
Rootstrikers, and is on the boards of
MapLight and
Represent.Us.
[5] He serves on the advisory boards of the
Democracy Café[6] and the
Sunlight Foundation.
[7]
In August 2015, Lessig announced that he was exploring a possible candidacy for President of the United States, promising to run if his exploratory committee raised $1 million by
Labor Day.
[8][9] After accomplishing this, on September 6, 2015, Lessig announced that he was entering the race
to become a candidate for the 2016
Democratic Party's
presidential nomination.
[10] Lessig has described his candidacy as a referendum on
campaign finance reform and
electoral reform legislation. He stated that, if elected, he would serve a full term as president with his proposed reforms as his legislative priorities.
[11] He ended his campaign in November 2015, citing rule changes from the Democratic Party that precluded him from appearing in the televised debates.
[12][13]
