Substance vs. Procedure
This piece about Lessig’s new Change Congress movement articulates the difference:
The vast majority of interest groups in Washington, from the Sierra Club to the AFL-CIO to Planned Parenthood, are pursuing what Edsall calls “substantive reform”–attempting to push legislation and enact policies that will provide public goods, protect citizens from harm and redistribute benefits, rights and privileges away from the powerful and toward middle-class citizens and disenfranchised minorities. Then there’s a small cluster of about a dozen groups–Public Campaign, the Center for Responsive Politics and the Sunlight Foundation–that focus on procedural reform.
