The News & TeleGraff

I wrote up a piece for ThinkerNet today about Larry Lessig running for Congress:

The challenge, of course, that Lessig hopes to address, and yet the one that more than anything would challenge his happiness on Capitol Hill, is that Washington hasn’t yet caught up with Moore’s Law of doubling in size every two years -- Washington still operates on a long-time horizon.

Washington is set up to discourage innovation. No lobbyist’s job in Washington is to encourage the free exchange of ideas, the cause that Lessig has devoted his professional career to advancing. Corporations and associations see Capitol Hill as one more place to secure their own futures and seek competitive advantage. The truth of the matter is, given the scale at which Washington works -- where a single contract can reap billions -- the tens of millions spent on lobbying is a smart investment. The rapid growth of Congressional earmarks and pork (perhaps the only aspect of Washington that could be argued as obeying Moore’s Law) in recent years has only strengthened that truth.