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Lessig '08 (updated) - February 20, 2008

Here's something for the studios to ponder: Larry Lessig, the Stanford University law professor, CEO of Creative Commons and a founder of the Free Culture movement, is considering a run for Congress. In a 10-minute video posted on the web site Lessig08.org, the frequent critic of Hollywood announces two new projects. One is an organization dubbed Change Congress, which seeks to recruit candidates for Congress willing to pledge that they will take no money from lobbyists or PACs, will vote to ban earmarks and will support public financing of elections. The second project is more personal: an "exploratory committee" to test the waters for a run for Congress in the currently open 12th district of California. Lessig promises a decision by March 1.

Although Lessig recently moved on from his long career as the official bête noir of the copyright industries to focus on ridding politics of the influence of money (!) Media Wonk guesses that won't be enough to get the contributions flowing in from Hollywood, even if they don't come from PACs. At the very least, he'd likely be one more vote for Rep. Rick Boucher's H.R. 1201 bill relaxing some of the provisions of the DMCA should he ever get it to the House floor.

The odds of moving Boucher's bill forward, incidentally, are poised to improve now that Boucher (D-VA) himself is poised to become chairman of the House intellectual property subcommittee. The current chairman, Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) is known on Capitol Hill as Congressman Hollywood, both for his district's geography straddling the Hollywood Hills and for his long support for the priorities of the studios. But Berman is now poised to take over the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whose former chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) died last month of cancer, leaving open, ironically enough, the very seat that Lessig is now eyeing.

Under House Democratic rules, Berman could not hold two committee chairmanships. Given a choice, he is widely expected to take the full-committee post at Foreign Affairs, where he is now the highest-ranking Democrat, assuming the House leadership follows the normal line of succession. That would leave open the chairmanship of the IP subcommittee, where Boucher is currently the No. 2 ranking Dem.

UPDATE: Turns out, House rules allow Berman to hold onto his chairmanship of the IP subcommittee through the end of this year, even if it ends up assuming the Foreign Affairs post. Come the next Congressional session in January, he would have to choose between his two chairmanships. Were he to give up the IP subcommittee, Boucher would then have to decide whether to try to grab Berman's gavel or hold onto his current chairmanship of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Boucher's district, in Southwest Virginia, is coal country, where they care a great deal about things like energy and air-quality legislation. Since it's all hypothetical at this point, Boucher's office isn't commenting on what the Congressman might do.
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