The Moral of the California Recall

Posted on August 8, 2003

Larry Lessig on what the hoopla in CA tells us about modern American politics:

One might say, who could possibly resist such a loophole. That whether it is honorable or not, what politician would forgo the chance to become President or Governor, regardless of the means?

Yet we should remember that many believe that Nixon made essentially this choice when he refused to fight the results in Illinois and thus let Kennedy become President. In his moral universe, that’s not how an executive should become an executive.

It is a measure of this Enron era that neither our President nor over 200 candidates in this California recall election live up to the moral standards of even Richard Nixon.