Harvard law professor and campaign-finance activist Lawrence Lessig is planning to announce his candidacy for the White House this week.(Photo: Courtesy of Lessig campaign)

WASHINGTON — Another Democrat plans to jump into the 2016 presidential contest Wednesday, but this one hopes to serve very little time in office.

Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and a leading campaign-finance activist, plans to run as a "referendum president," focused on a single mission: passing a package of laws to overhaul the nation's voting and campaign-finance system. Once his so-called Citizens Equality Act becomes law, Lessig said he would surrender the office to his vice president.

In an interview Tuesday with USA TODAY the day before his formal announcement in Claremont, N.H., Lessig said the current election system is rigged to benefit the wealthy few who dominate political giving.

"There is no relationship between what the average voter wants the government to do and what the government does," he said. "Politicians are focused on their funders and what their funders want, not on voters."

"In a democracy, that ought to set off some alarm bells."

He said he's taking an unorthodox approach to focus attention solely on reforming the election system. "I would give my left arm to serve as president for four or eight years," Lessig said, but he added that a broader platform would dilute his message.

Lessig, 54, is taking the bid seriously. He officially took a leave of absence from Harvard on Tuesday and says he has raised more than $1 million through crowdsourcing since announcing his exploratory bid last month.

Lessig said he's "optimistic" that he'll make the Democratic National Committee's polling threshold to participate in debates. To qualify, candidates must hit at least 1% in three credible national polls. The first debate is Oct. 13 in Nevada.

His plan would overhaul the election system in several ways. He calls for automatic voter registration and shifting Election Day to an existing national holiday or even a weekend day to encourage wider participation. It’s a riff on an idea pushed by another presidential candidate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who proposed a bill last year to designate a new holiday for federal elections. Lessig also wants to give every voter a voucher worth $50 to contribute money to congressional campaigns and impose restrictions on former federal lawmakers taking lobbying jobs.

Sanders, who is surging in the polls and attracting big crowds, has made overhauling the campaign-finance system a key part of his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Lessig is kicking off his long-shot bid the same week that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton unveiled a package of proposals aimed at addressing the unlimited money in American elections. Clinton's plan includes a program to match small political donations with federal funds to counteract the millions of dollars that wealthy donors are spending on presidential and congressional contests.

Sanders, Clinton and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley all have pledged to find ways to overturn the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts to influence candidate races. A recent USA TODAY analysis found that donations of $1 million or more account for nearly half the money channeled into candidate-aligned outside groups in the presidential race.

Lessig said he's "incredibly enthusiastic" about the overhaul proposals Clinton outlined Tuesday, but he said it's critical she and other candidates commit to making campaign-finance issues a "first priority" should they capture the presidency.

Railing against Citizens United "resonates with the Democratic base," said Nathan Gonzales of the non-partisan Rothenberg and Gonzales Political Report. But, he said, "I'm skeptical that this will be the driving issue of the 2016 election."

"I still think this election will be about big issues: the candidates, the economy, the direction of the country," Gonzales said.

This is not the first time Lessig, who gained public attention as a pioneer in cyber law, has undertaken an unconventional experiment to change the election system. Last year, he joined forces with Republican strategist Mark McKinnon to launch a super PAC, the Mayday PAC, which spent more than $10 million to help candidates who supported limiting money in politics. Their investments did not pay off at the ballot box, however.

Who would be his vice presidential nominee in 2016? Lessig said that choice should be left up to Democrats at the party's national convention.

However, he's seeking public input on possible contenders. Visitors to his website can cast their votes for nearly a dozen potential candidates — ranging from Clinton and Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg to comedian Jon Stewart and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson — or type in their own pick.

Right now, Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren are the top two vote-getters, he said.

Follow @fschouten on Twitter

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1ESINQA