Testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Citizens United

Lawrence Lessig Jul 24 2012, 8:00 AM ET

Previewing prepared remarks on the negative impact of the 2012 Supreme Court decision

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in June. (Reuters)

Editor's note: Atlantic correspondent and Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday at a hearing on the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. Lessig has written in this space about how opponents of the decision should approach reform, and he also profiled former presidential candidate Buddy Roemer, who will appear on the panel with him. Alesh Houdek wrote about Lessig's book Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It.

Here below are Lessig's prepared remarks.

The Testimony

Supplement: A Proposal to Convene a Series of "Citizen Conventions" An Appendix of Local and State Resolutions Passed Against the Citizens United Decision

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Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and founder of Rootstrikers, an activist network opposed to corruption in government. More

Lessig has authored numerous books, including Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Our Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It and One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic. He serves on the Board of Creative Commons, MapLight, Brave New Film Foundation, The American Academy, Berlin, AXA Research Fund and iCommons.org, and on the advisory board of the Sunlight Foundation. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, and has received numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, Fastcase 50 Award and being named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries.

Lessig holds a BA in economics and a BS in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a JD from Yale. Prior to rejoining the Harvard faculty, Lessig was a professor at Stanford Law School, where he founded the school's Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.