Location:
NYU School of Law’s Vanderbilt Hall: Greenberg Lounge
40 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
American democracy is in critical need of repair. Our politics are more divisive and more polarized than at any time in recent history. Lawmakers are beholden to wealthy donors, not to their constituents. Citizens’ voices are silenced through the erosion of their civil rights. Beltway politicians, who have long neglected to address these problems, are partly to blame. But the increasingly uninformed American public bears responsibility as well.
In his new book, They Don’t Represent Us, Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig charts the ways in which the fundamental institutions of our democracy respond to narrow interests rather than to the needs and wishes of the nation’s citizenry. He explores the causes and consequences of “unrepresentativeness” and calls for significant reforms including public campaign funding, a reformed Electoral College, and a nationwide ban on partisan gerrymandering.
Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School; host of the podcast Another Way; co-founder of Creative Commons; author of They Don’t Represent Us: Reclaiming our Democracy
Victoria Bassetti, Fellow, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
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