MP ep 5 corp ppl friend
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Nov 4, 2024 Master Plan podcast
You might remember Mitt Romney’s infamous line: “Corporations are people, my friend.” But where did this idea come from? In this episode: how the Ford Administration and the Powell Memo movement turned to the Supreme Court to establish the precedent that legalized corruption: money is speech, and corporations are entitled to First Amendment rights.
no lnx
Episode 5: Corporations Are People, My Friend | Master Plan
The Lever
Transcript
my thanks to all of you and now it's on to Chicago and let's win there Senator Robert Francis Kennedy
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died at 1:44 a.m. today June 6th
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1968 we just finished the last episode in the mid1 1970s so you might be
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wondering what are we doing back in 1968 and also what does RFK have to do with a
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master plan to legalize corruption don't worry I'm not going down a rabbit hole of Kennedy conspiracies but stay
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with me here you know that whole idea of Chaos Theory the Shand is the the butterfly effect a butterfly can flap
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its wings in ping and in Central Park you get rain instead essential well the death of RFK had cascading effects that
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I don't think even the best politicos could have ever predicted it was the first flap of the butterflyes Wings
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there were a few huge obvious Ripple effects from rfk's assassination the Democrats nominated Hubert Humphrey in
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the disastrous 1968 Democratic Convention which led to Richard Nixon getting elected and then of course
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Watergate but there was another often overlooked consequence a tiny Ripple
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that the master planners capitalized on that's still Making Waves today
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Kennedy's assassination left a vacancy in the US Senate which New York's Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller
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filled with a relatively obscure member of his own party rather than with another Democrat Governor Nelson
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Rockefeller today named New York Republican congressman Charles Goodell to the senate seat of the late Robert
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Kennedy the term expires in January 1971 representative Charles Goodell today
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mostly known as the father of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell but after Kennedy's assassination Goodell was
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plucked from the house to finish out the late Senator Kennedy's term two years later in 1970 Goodell was running for
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reelection but rather than Towing the Republican party's line he was a vocal
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critic of the Nixon Administration and the war in Vietnam not surprisingly this
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put him on the president's famous enemies list and Nixon's Vice President speo agnu went on the attack referring
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to him as part of an awful liberal radical Coalition vice president agnu said today the Goodell stimulates the
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type of leadership which encourages the dissident element in our society but the problem for the Nixon White House was
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that Goodell was their Party's candidate and even if they didn't like him did they really want to lose the seat to the
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Democrats enter The Longshot solution not only a better candidate in the short
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run but also a man whose actions and political positions would eventually be
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incredibly useful to the master planners we want want Bucky referred to as the other
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Buckley he is James the older brother of col William Buckley Buckley is a more
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likely Prospect for an upset especially if the liberal vote splits it would provide the kind of Victory the
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conservatives would really Savor right here in the heartland of the Eastern liberal establishment James Buckley
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became the nominee of the conservative party of New York he was a Longshot third-party candidate with a populist
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message isn't it about time we had a senator right James Buckley man of the
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people and by the people I mean mean all us descendants of Rich oil families
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James L Buckley for Senator here was an opportunity for the nent conservative movement to gain a foothold in American
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politics that first flap of the Butterflies Wings led to this candidate at this moment and while Nixon chose at
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least personally not to endorse any candidate in the three-way Senate race behind the scenes his henchmen and the
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conservative movement had found a candidate they could bankroll vice president agu campaigned to new York
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today against the reelection of one of his own party's candidates Senator Charles Goodell whom agu is denounced as
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a radical liberal agu spoke at a fundraising luncheon attended mostly by Republicans backing Conservative Party
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candidate James Buckley there were more than a few Heavy Hitters at that fundraising lunch Bankers board chairs
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businessmen and the former ambassador to Italy on Election night their political
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matchin naations paid off the man who's number one is James
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butley brother of columnist William F he is a lawyer and businessman wealthy and cultivat he's a minority Victor his two
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liberal opponents got more than 60% of the vote between them James Buckley became the first third-party candidate
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elected to the US Senate in three decades he'd only serve one term losing
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in 1976 but in that short period of time James Buckley became the perfect vehicle
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for the master planners playing the earnest Outsider the staunchly conservative Buckley looked like a real
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life Mr Smith Goes to Washington but in 1975 Buckley worked with DC insiders to
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engineer a lawsuit that would strike the first and perhaps most important blow against America's new campaign Finance
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laws and the thing about Buckley's lawsuit is it wasn't done under the banner of rank corruption he and his
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fellow plaintiffs cast the case as a crusade for free speech and third party
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rights to quote Dr Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park again a butterfly can flap its wings in ping and Central Park you
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get rain instead of Central in this episode we'll show how that first flap of a butterfly's Wings rfk's
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assassination ultimately provided the master planners with an opening in which they could test the legal ideas laid out
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in the Powell memo along the way we'll give you a rare Glimpse behind the scenes of how Supreme Court cases are
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decided by taking you into the inner sanctum of a notoriously secret branch
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of government I'm David soda and this is master
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plan what about the master plan [Music]
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huh up a master [Music]
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okay back to 1974 about four years after Buckley was elected to the US Senate as
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we heard in the last couple of episodes Lewis Powell had written his memo he's now a one-man Sleeper Cell on the
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Supreme Court simultaneously the master planners are hard at work implementing his blueprint for a corporate takeover
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of American politics one of the things they need to do to implement Pal's memo is destroy the laws that prevent them
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and their financial backers from spending unlimited amounts of money to buy elections politicians and political
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power one set of those laws has just been reluctantly enacted by President Gerald Ford in the wake of the Watergate
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scandal he signed several amendments to the federal election campaign act F and
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in Broad Strokes those laws did four things the master planners hated one is
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imposing contribution and spending limits one is imposing disclosure requirements one is creating the Federal
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Election Commission and one is setting up a system for public financing of presidential but not Congressional
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campaigns that's Rick Hassen he's a professor of Law and political science at UCLA where he also directs the
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safeguarding Democracy project when Gerald Ford signed the amendment strengthening f it was held up as proof
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that America was moving on from Watergate and cleaning up government but
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not so fast while Ford was touting the new new law in front of the cameras his White House issued a written statement
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about F that showed how little the administration actually supported the law the statement from Ford read quote
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although I do have reservations about the First Amendment implications inherent in the limits on individual
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contributions and candidate expenditures I'm sure that such issues can be resolved in the courts hm it's almost as
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if that was the plan ever since the meeting about the pal memo in Disney World back in episode 4
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it's on January 2nd 1975 exactly one day after these new F amendments went into
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effect a group of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in federal court the first name
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on this list of plaintiffs was none other than the one the only the thirdparty conservative darling Senator
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James Buckley making the serious charge that FICA was violating the First
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Amendment as Rick Hassen told us this case marked a turning point in American
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law it's the foundational case for understanding the Supreme Court's
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constitutional approach to campaign Finance questions everything flows from Buckley the defendant in this case was
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Francis valo the first director of the brand new Federal Election Commission created by F valo was just a name he was
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just the standin representative of the government but his side was tasked with protecting and upholding F the Buckley V
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valo case is complicated but as Rick Hassen explained the central issue was
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contribution and spending limits one of the provisions of the law said that a person could not spend more than $1,000
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to independently support or oppose a candidate for office so if you were living in a big city and you wanted to
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take out a big billboard in the 1976 election and say vote for Jimmy Carter
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that would cost more than ,000 that would be illegal man I wish we could vote for Jimmy Carter again is that an
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option anyway Buckley had already taken a vocal stand against F in the senate in
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his opinion those amendments and F in general made it harder for third-party
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candidates like himself to run for office let alone win and as part of his arguments on the senate floor he
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repeatedly cited a man named Ralph winter winter is coming winter was a law
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professor at Yale at the the time he'd also co-authored a booklet for the American Enterprise Institute a right
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leaning Think Tank and that booklet made the radical argument that money in politics did not equal corruption and
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vote buying it equaled free speech and free expression in this booklet he wrote
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that quote setting a limit on candidate expenditures sets a maximum on the political activities in which American
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citizens can engage and is thus unconstitutional of note the the other
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author on this booklet a guy by the name of Bolton Michael Bolton I could believe
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no not Michael Bolton John Bolton the neocon lover of war and former adviser
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to George W bush and Donald Trump the one with the bushy mustache and The Uncanny ability to survive more than 50
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years in politics despite being deeply unpopular with just about everyone
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Buckley makes Winter and Bolton's Free Speech arguments Central to his case to dismantle the new post-watergate
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campaign Finance laws and he had an odd assortment of other plaintiffs with him you might have heard the phrase that
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politics makes strange bedfellows but honestly I'm having a hard time thinking of a weirder combination than the group
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of plaintiffs attached to this lawsuit there's Buckley of course but also Senator Eugene McCarthy the liberal
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anti-war Democrat Who challenged President Johnson in the 1968 presidential primary then there was the
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New York civil liberties Union the libertarian party the Socialist Workers Party and the conservative party of the
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state of New York conservatives Libertarians and socialists joining forces on the same lawsuit dogs and cats
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living together massaria these were the Obscure underdogs of the political sphere but of course there was a master
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planner lurking in the background and after hearing about him in the last episode would it surprise you to learn
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that Charles kooch was bankrolling the lawsuit it sure didn't surprise me
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K wanted to be able to give unlimited money to his presidential candidate of choice a guy named Roger McBride from
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the brand new anti-government libertarian party I'm not sure Koch had enough money to propel McBride to
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Victory he won 2% of the popular vote and no Electoral College votes but then
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McBride went on to create the Little House on the Prairie TV series so maybe it was a win after
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all anyhow these plaintiffs didn't see the new post-watergate campaign Finance
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laws as a way to stop donors from buying votes elections and legislation no they
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saw f as an unconstitutional assault on donor's right to free speech Isn't it
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nice when people can find Common Ground a here's political science Professor
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Rick Hassen explaining the plaintiff's argument you know not everybody is talented they can't make their own TV
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ads and so how did they try to participate in elections with money and if you limit money then you're basically
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favoring some people over others the New York civil liberties Union argued that these laws were a form of overreach and
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provided a way for the government to stifle political speech Senators Buckley and McCarthy saw the laws as unfairly
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beneficial to incumbent candidates they'd both been Outsider Insurgent candidates meaning they didn't have the
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financial support of the two major parties political Machinery instead both men depended on money from wealthy
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owners to Kickstart their campaigns Buckley argued that FICA set such low spending limits that it made it much
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harder for an unknown Outsider candidate like himself to compete if you want to
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campaign for office you want people to vote for you you're running for congress it's going to cost money to do it if you
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say that candidates are limited in how much money they can spend or a person is limited how much money they could
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contribute for political speech that certainly affects the rights of speech and Association despite this argument
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the First Fed federal court that heard the case upheld F on the grounds that it prevented elections from becoming
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auctions sold to the highest bidder but the ink was barely dry on that decision
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when Buckley and his menagerie of plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court which heard the case on November 10th
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1975 8 days after I was born imagine an abnormally warm day just weeks before
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Thanksgiving while my mom is taking me home in a swaddle in New Haven connectic icut groups of lawyers defendants and
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plaintiffs made their way up the marble steps past the statues of the contemplation of justice and authority
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of law through the stately Greco Roman columns and sculpted bronze doors into
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the Great Hall of the US Supreme Court they file into the court chamber and
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arrange themselves at tables in front of the bench where the justices sit chief justice Warren berer a Richard Nixon
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appointee presided we'll hear arguments today and
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Buckley against bleo and others C you may proceed whenever you're
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ready arguing first on behalf of Buckley is Ralph winter the same man who'd
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written that booklet about money and speech and the same man that Buckley had cited in his Senate speeches against the
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F amendments the burden of the feca thus fall heavily on those challenging the
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status quo by impairing the ability of challenging ERS both to raise and spend
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money this legislation makes it acutely difficult for them to overcome the exposure incumbents already enjoy money
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he's saying allows candidates to reach their voters without it their speech is
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stifled which he says is a clear violation of the first amendment I don't think there could be any question about
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this if there were five restaurants in a town and someone was about to open a new one an ordinance severely limiting the
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amount of newspaper advertising restaurants might buy would be recognized for All For What what it is
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an attempt by the existing restaurants to freeze out newcomers arguing the other side in favor of protecting F and
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upholding contribution and expenditure limits was archabald Cox yes that's the
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same archal Cox who led the Watergate investigation the purposes as we see
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them are first to protect the honor and integrity of government operations in
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both the legislative and executive branches against the corrosive influence
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uh of large contributions the pressure to raise large money and the resulting
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set sense of indebtedness which of course does not affect every contribution but there appear to been
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too many of that character he's referring of course to the literal bags of cash delivered to Nixon's 1972
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campaign the illegal contributions that he prosecuted during Watergate and that we heard about back in episode 2 Cox
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along with the other lawyers on the government side pointed out that contributing money to campaigns wasn't
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protected speech and neither was campaign spending they argued that money doesn't buy speech it buys votes which
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is illegal they argued that unchecked money in politics caused the kind of corruption that America had just seen
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during Watergate it bought votes and influence and government favors and therefore the Constitution allowed it to
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be regulated now you just heard me say that Cox was defending F on behalf of
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the government but remember the Ford Administration aka the government didn't
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actually like f here's Rick Hassen again people who are working for the federal government some of them side with
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Buckley and the plaintiffs essentially Ford allowed his henchmen to undermine
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the defense of the law that they were supposed to be upholding and in fact the government ends up filing two briefs in
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the case one brief on behalf of the Federal Election Commission that defends the law and then one brief from the
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solicitor general the solicitor general the number three at the Department of Justice whose main job is to defend
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government agencies at the Supreme Court and at this moment in time the solicitor
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general was Robert Bork yes that Robert bour the only guy in
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the Justice Department willing to follow Nixon's orders and fire archal Cox
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during water gates Saturday night Massacre now as Ford's solicitor general in the campaign Finance case this was
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something of a rematch and Bourke was again the hatchet man taking the unprecedented step of filing a brief
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that says it is not taking a position but essentially argues that big chunks of the law are unconstitutional in
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essence bour was winking and nodding to the court telling the justices that hey
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the president signed this so we're technically obligated to defend this thing but really we want you to knock it
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down and that's exactly what the court did on January 30th 19 19 76 at first
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the ruling seemed to stand up the new campaign Finance law the court holds that the contribution limits do not
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directly impinge upon the rights of individual citizens and candidates to
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engage in political debate and discussion but then came the right hook
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to the face the court holds that the expenditure limitations are violative of
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first amendment guarantees and they are Constitution boom down goes a big part
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of f basically the Supreme Court upheld the contribution limits saying they only
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imposed a minor restriction on Free Speech but the court also said that if
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the government limited how much money a candidate or a special interest group could spend on something like a
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billboard or a TV commercial that was a direct infringement on their ability to
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communicate so they struck down expenditure limits this all may seem like some small technicality but it was
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huge James Buckley and his fellow plaintiffs had convinced the United States Supreme Court to agree in part to
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the master planner's radical argument that money wasn't a tool of corruption that could be regulated money was now a
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form of constitutionally protected speech this precedent was everything it
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would become the Cornerstone of the entire master plan a way to destroy all
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all campaign finance and anti-corruption laws with the blessing of the highest
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court in the land around the same time that the
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Supreme Court heard arguments in the Buckley V valo case justices were also
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dealing with two other cases about the First Amendment and freedom of speech these were cases about abortion and drug
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prices that didn't seem related to campaign Finance at all butterfly effect
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you get rain inste essential so let's start with abortion an alternative newspaper in Charlottesville Virginia
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was running advertisements for abortions that were legal in New York but not legal in Virginia the editor of the
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newspaper Jeffrey Bigalow was charged and convicted of advertising abortion Services which violated Virginia law
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Bigelow's case eventually ended up in front of the Supreme Court in 1975 where
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he was represented by the ACLU and they argued that the conviction violated the First Amendment watching this case very
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closely was a guy by the name of Allan Morrison who worked for Ralph nater's consumer protection group public citizen
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Morrison was interested in the Bigalow abortion case because he thought it might be an opportunity to create a new
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first amendment protection in an interview he told us that he was arguing for a consumer's right not just to speak
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but to listen to new information I saw this as a case in which we should file
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our brief testing the waters on The Listener Theory so Morrison filed an
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amicus brief in the abortion case outlining his argument you are depriving
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listeners Virginia citizens who want to go to New York to have an abortion where it's perfectly legal and Virginia has no
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basis for keeping you out of doing that Morrison's brief swayed the opinion of Justice Harry Blackman who would used
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this argument when he wrote the Supreme Court's majority opinion Morrison's goal of creating a new president had worked
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like a charm he then turned to the case he was really interested in as a consumer rights attorney a case in which
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a woman named Lynn Jordan was trying to challenge the laws that prevented pharmacies from advertising prescription
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drug prices Jordan had had a hysterectomy and required all kinds of medications but state laws prohibited
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pharmacies from advertising drug prices on the grounds that that kind of advertising would somehow make
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pharmacists less professional there were about 34 states that had laws like Virginia that forbad the advertising of
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the price of prescription drugs and the Federal Trade Commission had demonstrated conclusively that the
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prices of prescription drugs in those states were higher than it was elsewhere so with Morrison's help Lyn Jordan sued
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in this case the state of Virginia insisted that such laws were allowed because product advertisements were not
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political speech they were commercial speech which wasn't protected under the First Amendment that's where Morrison
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whipped out the recent win in that Bigalow abortion case the one about
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listener rights we built on Bigalow and said that the First Amendment doesn't distinguish between commercial speech
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and non-commercial speech speech that he argued should be protected under the First Amendment because it allowed the
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public to be more informed they as Citizens and consumers had a right to
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listen and a right to know once again the argument found an ally Injustice
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Blackman who delivered the ruling in May 1976 we further hold that so-called
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commercial speech is not wholly outside the protection of the first and 14th amendments the individual consumer and
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Society in general may have strong interest in the free flow of commercial information the ruling was hailed in the
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press as another big Ralph nater backed win for consumers consumer groups won a
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major victory today before The Supreme Court one they say that eventually could lead to lower prices for funerals and
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Eyeglasses and even medical and legal services all right hooray people who had
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been kept in the dark about prescription drug prices suddenly had the information they needed to make decisions that could
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save them money they were thrilled this was a huge victory for Alan Morrison and Ralph nater and consumers rights score
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one for the underdog the little guy the champion of the people play us some celebration music baby this is a huge
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[Music] Victory wait a minute wait hang on hang on is that a fax
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machine I didn't even know I had one of those things huh this is from my producer oh
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no way okay hey cut cut the music okay let me amend what I just said this
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would end up not being a huge win in fact it was the opposite sure this may
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have been a victory for some little guy consumers but for campaign finance and Corruption the ruling was about to be
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transformed into a powerful weapon for the biggest of big guy oligarchs the law
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of unintended consequences was about to kick in with a nudge from the Supreme
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Court Justice Lewis Powell remember him Powell had initially
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argued that there was quote no constitutional right to know but would
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change his mind when faced with a golden opportunity to further his master
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plan okay let's review it's 1976 the master planners had used The
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Accidental but fortuitous election of Senator James Buckley to get the Supreme Court to validate a previously radical
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theory that money wasn't a tool of corruption to buy votes but was instead a constitutionally protected form of
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speech the court holds that the expenditure limitations are violative of
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first amendment guarantees and they are unconstitutional then Ralph nater's
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organization a group that's supposed to be the polar opposite of the master planners it goes into court on behalf of
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consumers and gets the court to say that corporations have at least some of the same First Amendment protections that
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individuals do we further hold that so-called commercial speech is not
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wholly outside the protection of the first and 14th amendments so now let's turn to the final case in our lineup the
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one that ultimately features the master planner you heard about in the last two
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episodes Lewis F Powell of Powell memo Fame it's still 1976 America's
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Bicentennial happy birthday USA we're in Boston Massachusetts where another
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important legal case was building steam in the bay State's Court rooms First National Bank of Boston versus balani
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really began as a battle between Massachusetts lawmakers and one of the most influential businessmen in Boston a
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man by the name of Richard Hill who ran the First National Bank of Boston that's
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Adam Winkler he's a professor of law at UCLA and he wrote extensively about this
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case in his book we the corporations and while you might not be familiar with this case you should know that it paved
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the way for Citizens unit United if rfk's assassination and Lyn Jordan's
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hysterctomy are flapping butterfly wings this case is
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Mothra in 1976 Massachusetts passed its own State Statute expanding on the
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amendments to F that had passed in Washington DC essentially the new Massachusetts law barred corporations
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from making contributions or expenditures to influence the voting on any ballot initiatives unless it was an
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initiative that clearly affected that particular business any ballot measure on individual taxation would be
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automatically deemed immaterial to their business probably not coincidentally that same year there was a proposal to
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put a constitutional amendment on the 1976 Massachusetts state ballot that would raise taxes on the wealthy and
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lawmakers in Massachusetts wanted Institute a graduated income tax uh basically say that individuals who made
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the most money paid relatively higher percentage of their income in taxes individuals like Richard Hill and other
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high-powered Executives which sounds reasonable right rich people paying their fair share what a concept suffice
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it to say Richard Hill and his cronies were not stoked about this idea but
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under Massachusetts new law they were barred from spending any money out of their corporate treasuries on
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influencing the outcome of this ballot measure never mind that they could still spend their own money just not the
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company's much larger pile of money they were not too happy about this and what
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do good Americans do when they're unhappy they go to court Richard Hill
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took it to court and he argued in court that this Massachusetts law that
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restricted corporations from spending money on these individual tax related
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ballot measures was unconstitutional under the First Amendment Hill and first First National Bank lost in the Supreme
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Court of Massachusetts so they appealed this case to the US Supreme Court which
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hurt it in 1977 representing Hill and the other Rich guys was Francis Fox who reminded
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the court that justices had recently ruled that money is not corruption money
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is speech speech is protected unless and until it comes up against a compelling
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State purpose in carefully drafting legislation which serves that purpose in
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the least restrictive manner available in other words the prohibition should be made to justify itself the focus should
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be on the prohibition corporate speaker should not be made to justify his
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perspective speech side note you may remember that in his memo Lewis Powell suggested that corporations take a page
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out of the Lefty liberal Playbook and file briefs Amicus cui in the Supreme
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Court to influence Justice's decisions no surprise then that Corporate America
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was more than happy to file amicus briefs on behalf of Richard Hill's First
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National Bank of Boston and that two of those amicus briefs came from groups
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that might sound familiar the US Chamber of Commerce for whom Lewis Powell wrote the Powell memo and the Pacific Legal
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Foundation which had been one of the legal groups inspired by the pal memo but back to our case representing
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Massachusetts is is that State's Attorney General Francis Botti he's simply the name on the case but it's the
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Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General Thomas Kylie who's defending the state in court the main thrust of his argument
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is that businesses are not people and therefore do not have First Amendment
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rights we start first from the proposition though that corporations do
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not have First Amendment rights per se that they are not natural persons and that they may be restricted to
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protection of the rights that are contained in their chars the justices heard the oral arguments and then a few
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days later they met in what's called a conference now the Supreme Court is a
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notoriously secretive institution not Vatican level but there's a fair amount that goes on behind the scenes that the
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public knows very little about here's Adam Winkler again the conference is a closed door meeting of the justices no
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one else is allowed in no law clerks or secretaries or Messengers it's just the justices and
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they go around the room and set order with the Chief Justice being the first to speak and then every other Justice
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coming in order of seniority and they State their view on the case and how they expect to vote so the justices meet
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they vote and they assign someone to write the opinion typically over the course of some months they'll pass
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around some drafts and agree to a final opinion which usually reflects their votes in the initial conference but
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that's not not what happened in First National Bank of Boston versus bot
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normally we wouldn't know what went on in conference but in this case thanks to
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Adam Winkler we got a rare glimpse of the messy behind the scenes for his
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excellent book we the corporations Adams scoured the papers of the Supreme Court Justices and what he uncovered in the
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hundreds of pages of letters memos and messages illuminated what happened next
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as the justices went around the room at the conference the majority of justices did not think that the court had to say
34:01
that corporations have the same Free Speech rights as people instead they supported a narrower view they thought
34:08
that Massachusetts law needed to give corporations the opportunity to show that the tax measure on the ballot
34:15
affected their businesses it might for instance make it harder for corporations like First National Bank to recruit
34:22
Executives if those Executives would have to pay higher income taxes but a limited ruling like that was as far as
34:29
most of the justices were willing to go they weren't willing to go further and say that corporations had the exact same
34:36
First Amendment rights as Citizens however one hold out on the court saw
34:42
his chance we're going to need some uh some dark scary music here no no that's that's just creepy I I
34:49
want listeners to really feel this something darker no no no not like that I mean that's dark but in a different
34:56
way look just play the dark scariest song you can find from
35:02
1977 there there that's perfect perfect perfect let's welcome back to the stage
35:07
the OG Master planner himself Justice Lewis Powell in the Justice Conference
35:15
about Botti Powell wants to go big really big he didn't want a narrow
35:21
ruling he wanted a decision that would blow the doors off of free speech
35:26
limitations for corporations permanently Powell argued that massachusetts's law
35:33
should be struck down because corporations had the same Free Speech right as individuals that Massachusetts
35:41
could not limit corporations to only spending on things that were material to the business that it was up to the
35:47
business to decide what to spend its money on and lawmakers had no role to
35:53
play in that decision it was only poell who had that very Broad perspective at
35:58
the conference and the other seven justices who agreed to strike down massachusetts's law thought instead that
36:05
the court should rule narrowly one of those seven other justices William Brennan was assigned to
36:12
write the Court's final ruling which would strike down the Massachusetts law but only in a narrow fashion but as
36:20
Brennan started to write he ran into a problem the more he thought about it the
36:25
more he became convinced that this kind of ruling wouldn't be effective that the broader question about whether
36:31
corporations have the same political speech rights as individuals would simply show up again in another case and
36:39
on that broader question Brennan was clear he thought corporations did not have the same political speech rights as
36:45
individuals and as a result he said to the other justices I'm not the right one
36:51
to write this opinion Justice Brennan issued a written statement to his colleagues laying out the reasons for
36:57
his crisis of confidence it was kind of an oh moment in the margins of his
37:02
copy of Brennan's letter Justice Lewis Powell wrote wow with an exclamation point expressing his surprise at this
37:09
turn of events of course it was also an amazing opportunity Powell wrote another
37:15
memo man this guy loves memos in this new memo to the other justices he subtly
37:22
pitched himself as the replacement to write the Court's majority opinion that would become the law of the land Powell
37:29
was eager to expand the political speech rights of Corporations Massachusetts is
37:34
trying to prevent corporations from doing what he thinks is the most important thing they can do which is to
37:40
get politically active and to fight for their rights and to defeat the the rising tide of business regulation and
37:48
what poell saw as nothing short of socialism chief justice Warren berer let
37:54
Powell write the opinion but remember Powell who are argued that the entire law should be struck down on the grounds
38:00
that corporations have free speech rights he was still in the minority on the Court Justice Byron White had always
38:07
felt the Massachusetts law should be upheld he was joined by Justice Brennan who no longer supported the idea of even
38:13
a narrow ruling Justice thurg Good Marshall thought corporations could be restricted in political spending and
38:20
Justice ranquist argued that corporations had no political speech rights at all that meant four justices
38:27
against Powell and chief justice Berger had also started to waver wondering if
38:33
striking down the Massachusetts law would undermine federal anti-corruption laws this was turning into a real
38:40
nailbiter of a court case Powell was in danger of losing the majority but then a
38:47
light bulb went off in Powell's brain he remembered that Virginia
38:54
pharmacy case the one we just discussed earlier in this episode in his gential
38:59
Southern manner Powell referenced the case and reminded his fellow justices that they literally just voted for that
39:07
ruling which said the public has an inherent right to hear corporate speech
39:12
so by that logic didn't the voters of Massachusetts also have a right to hear
39:17
what the First National Bank of Boston and other businesses had to say about ballot measures so poell uses Blackman's
39:25
argument from Virginia pharmacy to to secure his majority and in the end
39:30
radically rewrite American constitutional law Powell convinced just
39:35
enough justices including Justice Berger to join him in a 5 to4 ruling that said
39:42
that the Massachusetts restriction on political contributions by corporations violated the First Amendment and was
39:49
thus unconstitutional giving corporations a broad and expansive right
39:54
to spend their money on politics and elections that was a decision that would
40:01
really radically transform American democracy the author of the pow memo had been alone in the initial conference and
40:09
now this master planner had forever enshrined his own beliefs into a law
40:14
that favored corporations not people here's Justice Powell reading the
40:19
decision the F amendment's primary concern and therefore the Court's
40:24
concern always has been the president ation of free and uninhibited
40:31
dissemination of information and ideas especially if that information and those
40:37
ideas conform to the pow memo am I right if the restrictive view of corporate
40:43
speech taken by the massachusett court were accepted government would have the
40:48
power to deprive Society of the views of Corporations on all issues other than
40:54
those that could be proved to aect effect adversely their property or
41:00
business interest how sad for us if we were to be deprived of the views of
41:06
Corporations you can't hear it but I'm rolling my eyes here Powell elaborated
41:11
further on this point in the final written opinion stating quote it is the type of speech indispensable to
41:17
decision-making in a democracy and this is not less true because the speech
41:23
comes from a corporation rather than an individual thanks to Powell's ruling
41:28
corporations now had even more First Amendment rights and the consequences
41:34
have been enormous the principles established by the bat case that
41:39
corporations effectively had the same First Amendment speech rights as individuals that it was inappropriate
41:45
for businesses to be limited in political spending campaigns would be
41:51
very very influential and completely transform American jurist Prudence over
41:57
time time put another way the case created the principal infamously summarized by Massachusetts future
42:03
Governor Mitt Romney they brought us whole binders full of women yeah he said that too I mean this corporations are
42:10
people my friend boom shakalaka you wanted me to show you the money well there it is there's your payoff Lewis
42:17
Powell has successfully blown open the floodgates for the kind of corporate spending that his memo said was
42:23
necessary for a big business takeover of the country we started the 1970s with a push to get
42:31
money out of politics we end it with a flood of cash and Buckley especially
42:36
proved to be the biggest crack in the dam that decision allowed candidates to spend as much as they wanted no spending
42:44
limits provided you could get your hands on the cash of course there were plenty of
42:50
wealthy people and corporations who had the kind of cash that could buy elections but the Buckley decision had
42:56
ensured that candidates were only allowed to take a limited amount so money found a different way to flow it
43:04
would go to the master planners supposedly independent organizations that could spend unlimited amounts of
43:10
cash on the candidates behalf provided that these organizations weren't
43:16
explicitly coordinating with the candidates they were supporting which of course they would never do yeah
43:22
it was but legally speaking these organizations could insist they didn't explicitly coordinated not
43:29
surprisingly these independent expenditures became the way to get money
43:35
into the system and buy elections independent organizations which support Reagan can spend and spend thanks to a
43:42
loophole in the campaign law there is no limit on what these independent organizations can spend these so-called
43:48
independent organizations otherwise known as political action committees or packs became the vehicle for getting
43:55
money into campaigns and they were growing in number in 1974 there were
44:00
about 600 packs and only 89 were affiliated with corporations by 1980
44:07
after the Supreme Court's Buckley and Botti rulings changed the game the number of packs nearly quadrupled to
44:15
2300 and nearly half of them had corporate ties this is simplifying things a bit but the tide of corporate
44:22
spending on political activities Rose exponentially in that 6-year period
44:27
and no one with any power seemed to be interested in doing anything to stop it
44:32
except for one guy a guy who looked like the opposite of the hippie liberal reformers and their Legions of Lefty
44:39
activists this was a combat veteran and a war hero a Conservative Republican
44:45
from a super conservative State burned in a campaign Finance Scandal he would
44:50
spend the rest of his life crusading against the master planner scheme to legalize corruption he was pissed and he
44:58
was going to take his fight to both parties voters those of us privileged to hold a public office have ourselves to
45:05
blame for the sickness in American public life today and we are the Defenders of a campaign Finance system
45:12
that is nothing less than an elaborate influence pedaling scheme in which both
45:18
parties conspire to stay in office by selling the country to the highest
45:24
bidder and this guy wasn't just complaining about the problem he had a plan of his own that's next time on
45:31
master
45:37
plan [Music]
45:43
up I earned everything I
45:51
got master well I'm not a c I earned
45:59
everything I got master plan is a production of the lever this episode was written by Laura
46:06
CR And Me David serota our production team includes Jared Mayer Ula kulpa
46:11
Arjun Singh and Ronnie Rick a benni our editor is Ron Doyle factchecking of this episode by Chris Walker original music
46:19
is by Nick Byron Campbell mixing by Louis weeks special thanks to Rick Hassen Alan Morrison and Adam Winkler
46:26
you can listen listen And subscribe to master plan on Apple podcasts Spotify iHeart Radio YouTube music or wherever
46:34
else you get your podcasts for AdFree episodes exclusive bonus content transcripts with links to our sources
46:41
and access to the lever's entire Archive of investigative journalism please visit
46:46
leverne news.com to become a subscriber well I'm not a cook I earned
46:54
everything I've got got got got got God
45:01
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