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Professor Lawrence Lessig is noted in the San Jose Mercury News in a story about congressional earmark wish-lists. House leaders are requiring members of Congress to post in a web site how they want to spend taxpayer money in the 2010 federal budget. The posting of this wish-list is meant to lend transparency and prevent pork-barrel spending:
On her Web site, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, describes a rigorous process to evaluate funding requests. She appointed an oversight committee chaired by Stanford University professor Larry Lessig that held three public hearings to review requests.
Lessig's committee evaluated 59 projects, eliminating requests from for-profit companies or for projects ordinarily paid for by local governments, such as sewer repair.