Election day: Only Josh Silver won

[Commentary] Josh Silver is the president of Represent.US. I’ve been an advisor and supporter of Represent.US, but I’ve not been engaged in the campaign they waged in this election cycle. That campaign—plus what happened in Maine—may be the only good news from November 8th. For in South Dakota, voters supported a referendum that will give candidates for state office vouchers to run their campaigns. Read that again: In a state that voted 62% for Donald Trump, 52% voted to publicly fund state campaigns.

Washington state was another victory, but not as surprising. Voters there overwhelmingly (63%) supported an initiative attacking Citizens United. That had happened in many states before—including in the Red State of Montana. But it confirmed the continued frustration that Americans have with a system in which a tiny tiny few can spend unlimited amounts to influence an election. (And yes, I’m thinking specifically about the $7 million spent in the final weeks in Zephyr’s district, reversing a lead into a defeat.) (The other real victory was in Maine. Maine voters have passed a ranked choice vote initiative—giving voters the ability to vote for more than one candidate, by ranking their choices. This will be a key part of fixing Congress—as will what South Dakota did yesterday, (and which Maine had done more than 20 years ago). But more on the importance of this in a different post.) Silver, and Represent.US, of course, didn’t win this campaign on their own. An incredible team of activists in South Dakota did the work on the ground to turn out voters for this crucial and obvious reform. But Silver deserves real credit, for placing the resources of our movement on a long-term but sensible bet: That we can win the people state by state—even Red State by Red State—even if we can’t yet win the nation.

[Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School]