The visionary of the new, expanded reform movement is another professor, Larry Lessig of Harvard Law. He’s written a book about political money, organized other grassroots groups, even tried running for president on the issue last year.
At the march, Lessig said the goal is not to undo Citizens United.
“Citizens United was the best thing for the reform movement since Richard Nixon. What it did was rally people,” he said. But big donors already had too much sway, he said: “The democracy was already dead. The Supreme Court might have shot the body, but the body was already cold.”
The solution, according to Lessig and other progressive advocates: Government-funded vouchers for small donors, to give them more clout. Both Clinton and Sanders have endorsed the system.
“That is the single most important change that could happen,” Lessig said. “And in 10 years it’s gone from being impossible to imagine to being conventional for both of them.”