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Tech guru Lawrence Lessig recently decided not to run for congress, but that doesn't mean he's giving up his role as an active activist. Yesterday, Lessig announced a new technology-based effort to reform congress. Here's how he described the movement's goals and strategies:

Change-Congress.org will be a bi-partisan, web-based effort to leverage and amplify the important reform work being done by others. Think of it as a kind of Google-mashup, but applied to politics. Our aim is not to displace primary reform organizations, but rather to complement and feed support back to these organizations. And in the process, we hope to make transparent just how broad and deep the support for fundamental reform is.

Change-Congress.org will develop in three stages. The first layer will give candidates and Members of Congress a simple way to signal their support for any mix of four fundamental planks of reform: (1) a promise not to accept PAC or lobbyist contributions, (2) a commitment to abolish "earmarks" permanently, (3) a commitment to support public financing of public elections, and (4) a commitment to compel transparency in the functioning of Congress. Once a candidate or Member selects the planks he or she supports, the site will give the candidate code to embed that pledge on the campaign website. Citizens too will be able to take a similar pledge, promising to support candidates who match their own vision of reform. When they do, they will be linked back to reform organizations that support each plank.

But the real contribution of citizens will reach far beyond simply making a pledge. Beginning in April, we will launch a second stage to the site: in a Wikipedia-inspired manner, wiki-workers will track the reform-related positions of candidates who have not yet taken a pledge. If a candidate, for example, has endorsed Public Campaign's bill for public financing, we will record that fact on our site. The same with a pledge to forgo money from PACS or lobbyists, or any of the other planks in the Change Congress pledge. And once this wiki-army has tracked the positions of all Members of Congress, we will display a map of reform, circa 2008: Each Congressional district will be colored in either (1) dark red, or dark blue, reflecting Republicans or Democrats who have taken a pledge, (2) light red or light blue, tracking Republicans and Democrats who have not taken our pledge, but who have signaled support for planks in the Change-Congress platform, or (3) for those not taking the pledge and not signaling support for a platform of reform, varying shades of sludge, representing the percentage of the Member's campaign contributions that come from PACs or lobbyists.

What this map will reveal, we believe, is something that not many now actually realize: that the support for fundamental reform is broad and deep. That recognition in turn will encourage more to see both the need for reform, and the opportunity that this election gives us to achieve it. Apathy is driven by the feeling that nothing can be done. This Change Congress map will demonstrate that in fact, something substantial can be done. Now.

Finally, the third stage of Change Congress will provide financial support to reform candidates. Following the model of Emily's List, we will recruit contributors to support Change Congress candidates, both Republican and Democratic, who make reform a central platform of their campaign. Individuals will be asked, for example, to contribute $10/month to five Change Congress candidates. That support will make it easier for those candidates to spread the message of reform, and to define at least one central part of their candidacy to be about reform.

The key to this movement will build upon the best of Internet social and community activism, to the end of substantial reform. The web is not simply a replacement for broadcast. It is not simply a cheaper, more interactive political brochure. It is instead a technology which, if architected right, can enable an extraordinary range of citizens to engage -- to speak, to write, to investigate, and to pledge. It is this engagement that turns supporters into soldiers for a cause.

Let the cause of this political cycle be substantial and fundamental reform of Congress. For with an approval rating hovering in the low 20s, no other federal institution needs the renewed confidence of the people more. From the scandals involving outright bribery, to the indirect corruption of earmarks, to the pervasive and persistent skepticism born of the view that too rarely does congressional action track policy sense rather than campaign dollars, this is an institution in desperate need of change. Done right, the Net can leverage the support for that change. And get it done.

Those of you paying careful attention might have already noticed the "Change Congress" banner that I added to the sidebar yesterday. Joining this movement wasn't just important to me because I believe in its specific goals; more broadly, I think the approach that it is taking is one that could radically transform the relationship between the people and their government in this country. I'm still not 100% convinced on the need to eliminate all earmarks, but the rest of the goals are essential. I've joined.... why don't you?

UPDATE: More:

The most interesting part, so far, has been Lessig's argument to conservatives for why we need public financing. First, the idea he semi-endorsed is not full public campaign finance. It is public financing for incumbents, an idea he credits to Paul Begala and James Carville. Incumbents would be prohibited from raising any money, at all, period. Their funds will come from the U.S. Treasury and be a function of how much their opponents raise. If Challenger Jones raises $1 million, Congressman Smith gets a check for $800,000.

Why should conservatives and libertarians support this, given that Lessig accepts a $2 billion estimate of the cost? "Why is government so big?" Lessig asks, rhetorically. "Because Congressmen must get elected. The insidious relationship between the desire to regulate and the need for congressmen to get re-elected drives the expansion of government." Compare that $2 billion cost, Lessig suggests, to a radically shrunken (and less busy) FEC and the diminishment of loopholes and handouts.

Lessig quotes Ronald Reagan on how people vote themselves benefits from the treasury. Lessig agrees with the argument, but not the reasoning. "The problem we face is the problem of crony capitalism. Not wealth pumped down, but wealth pumped up."

Ah, but that assumes that conservatives actually want a smaller government. The evidence from the past 10 years would suggest they do not. Rather, it suggests that crony capitalism was precisely their goal all along. Conservatives will never support this because it is designed to neutralize the power of business in government. True small government conservatives will rally behind it, but how many of them are actually left in the world?