Lessig Blog, v2

An (Elihu) Root-striker

I’ve been pushing the Henry David Thoreau inspired vision of “rootstrikers”:

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Maggie McKinley reminds me of the other rootstriker inspiration — one pointed to by the Supreme Court in their McConnell v. FEC decision: 

More than a century ago the “sober-minded Elihu Root” advocated legislation that would prohibit political contributions by corporations in order to prevent ” ‘the great aggregations of wealth, from using their corporate funds, directly or indirectly,’ ” to elect legislators who would ” ‘vote for their protection and the advancement of their interests as against those of the public.’ ” … In Root’s opinion, such legislation would ” ‘strik[e] at a constantly growing evil which has done more to shake the confidence of the plain people of small means of this country in our political institutions than any other practice which has ever obtained since the foundation of our Government.’ ” … The Congress of the United States has repeatedly enacted legislation endorsing Root’s judgment.

Let them again. 

20 January 2012 ·

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