Corporations Are People, My Friend

Summary

Master Plan Podcast Episode Summary: "Corporations Are People, My Friend"

Release Date: September 17, 2024
Host: David Sirota
Podcast: Master Plan by The Lever
www.masterplanpodcast.com

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Introduction: The Ripple Effects of RFK's Assassination

The episode begins by delving into the assassination of Senator Robert Francis Kennedy on June 6, 1968, and its unforeseen impact on American democracy. Host David Sirota draws a parallel to chaos theory, illustrating how RFK's death acted as the initial "flap of a butterfly's wings," leading to significant political shifts over the ensuing decades.

David Sirota [01:07]: "Kennedy's assassination left a vacancy in the US Senate, which New York's Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller filled with a relatively obscure member of his own party rather than with another Democrat."

Charles Goodell and the Birth of a Conservative Strategy

Governor Nelson Rockefeller appointed Charles Goodell, a Republican Congressman, to fill RFK's Senate seat. Goodell emerged as a vocal critic of the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War, placing him on President Nixon's "enemies list."

Vice President Agnew [03:07]: "...Goodell stimulates the type of leadership which encourages the dissident element in our society."

Faced with the potential loss of the seat to a liberal Republican, Nixon's team devised a long-shot strategy to install James Buckley, a conservative outsider, thereby strengthening the conservative movement's foothold in American politics.

David Sirota [04:01]: "Eastern liberal establishment, James Buckley became the nominee of the Conservative Party of New York. He was a long shot third party candidate with a populist message."

The Emergence of the Master Plan and Lewis Powell's Influence

James Buckley's election as the first third-party Senator in decades became a pivotal moment for the "Master Plan." Buckley, perceived as an earnest outsider, later collaborated with Washington insiders to challenge campaign finance laws, aligning with the broader strategy outlined in Lewis Powell's memo—a blueprint for corporate influence in politics.

David Sirota [05:30]: "James Buckley worked with DC insiders to engineer a lawsuit that would strike the first and perhaps most important blow against America's new campaign finance laws."

Buckley v. Vallejo: Challenging Campaign Finance Reform

In 1975, Buckley initiated a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission (FEC), arguing that the recently amended Federal Election Campaign Act (FICA) violated the First Amendment by restricting political spending. The case, Buckley v. Vallejo, served as a foundational challenge to campaign finance regulations.

David Sirota [10:55]: "The defendant in this case was Francis Vallejo of the brand new Federal Election Commission created by FICA."

Legal scholar Rick Hasen explains the central issue of the case:

Rick Hasen [09:14]: "One is imposing contribution and spending limits, one is imposing disclosure requirements, one is creating the Federal Election Commission, and one is setting up a system for public financing of presidential, but not congressional campaigns."

Supreme Court Proceedings and Strategic Maneuvering

The case escalated to the Supreme Court, where Buckley and his diverse group of plaintiffs—including Senator Eugene McCarthy, various political parties, and even the New York Civil Liberties Union—challenged FICA's contribution and expenditure limits as unconstitutional restrictions on free speech.

David Sirota [11:50]: "Man, I wish we could Vote for Jimmy Carter again. Is that an option?"

The government's defense, led by Archibald Cox and Solicitor General Robert Bork, argued that money in politics equates to corruption and vote-buying, justifying the need for regulation.

Archibald Cox [18:35]: "contributing money to campaigns wasn't protected speech, and neither was campaign spending. They argued that money doesn't buy speech, it buys votes, which is illegal."

Despite Cox's arguments, internal conflicts within the Ford administration revealed a lack of genuine support for FICA's enforcement, hinting at the underlying Master Plan's objectives.

Buckley v. Vallejo Ruling: A Landmark Decision

On January 30, 1976, the Supreme Court delivered a split ruling. While it upheld contribution limits, it struck down expenditure restrictions, asserting that such limits directly infringed upon First Amendment rights.

David Sirota [21:01]: "...the Supreme Court upheld the contribution limits, saying they only imposed a minor restriction on free speech. But the Court also said that if the government limited how much money a candidate or a special interest group could spend on something like a billboard or a TV commercial, that was a direct infringement on their ability to communicate."

This decision established a precedent that equated political spending with protected speech, laying the groundwork for future corporate influence in politics.

Adjacent Supreme Court Cases: Expanding the Influence of Corporate Speech

Concurrently, the Supreme Court reviewed cases related to abortion advertising and prescription drug price disclosures. Legal strategist Alan Morrison's "listener theory" fortified the argument that all forms of speech, including commercial speech, should be protected under the First Amendment.

Jane Sirota [24:36]: "...speech that he argued, should be protected under the First Amendment because it allowed the public to be more important informed."

These cases further blurred the lines between personal and corporate speech, reinforcing the notion that corporations possess similar First Amendment rights as individuals.

First National Bank of Boston vs. Bellotti: Corporate Speech Solidified

In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of First National Bank of Boston vs. Bellotti, which challenged Massachusetts' restrictive campaign finance law. Richard Hill of the First National Bank argued that such restrictions were unconstitutional.

Adam Winkler [30:02]: "Representing Hill and the other rich guys was Francis Fox..."

Lewis Powell, a Supreme Court Justice influenced by the Powell memo, spearheaded the argument that corporations should have the same free speech rights as individuals. Despite initial resistance from other justices, Powell successfully secured a 5-4 majority to strike down Massachusetts' law.

David Sirota [41:38]: "Lewis Powell had successfully blown open the floodgates for the kind of corporate spending that his memo said was necessary for a big business takeover of the country."

This ruling was a direct manifestation of the Master Plan, ensuring that corporations could exert unlimited financial influence on political campaigns and policymaking.

The Aftermath: Explosion of Corporate Influence in Politics

Following the Buckley and Bellotti decisions, Political Action Committees (PACs) proliferated, serving as conduits for corporate money in politics. The number of PACs surged from approximately 600 in 1974 to 2,300 by 1980, with nearly half having corporate affiliations.

David Sirota [45:36]: "...the tide of corporate spending on political activities rose exponentially in that six year period and no one with any power seemed to be interested in doing anything to stop it."

These developments marked the culmination of the Master Plan, embedding corporate financial power deeply into the fabric of American democracy.

Conclusion: The Master Plan Realized

David Sirota concludes the episode by highlighting how strategic legal battles, influenced by the Powell memo and orchestrated by corporate interests, systematically dismantled campaign finance reforms. This allowed for unprecedented corporate influence in politics, transforming the United States into what the podcast describes as a "kleptocracy."

David Sirota [43:59]: "Boom shakalaka. You wanted me to show you the money? Well, there it is. There's your payoff."

The episode sets the stage for subsequent discussions on how this foundational shift has continued to shape American politics, leading into the next installment of the Master Plan series.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• David Sirota [04:23]: "James Buckley, man of the people. And by the people, I mean all us descendants of rich oil families."

• Rick Hasen [09:14]: "One is imposing contribution and spending limits, one is imposing disclosure requirements, one is creating the Federal Election Commission, and one is setting up a system for public financing of presidential, but not congressional campaigns."

• David Sirota [11:50]: "Man, I wish we could Vote for Jimmy Carter again. Is that an option?"

• Archibald Cox [18:35]: "They argued that money doesn't buy speech, it buys votes, which is illegal."

• Rick Hasen [19:56]: "People who are working for the federal government, some of them side with Buckley and the plaintiffs."

• Adam Winkler [30:02]: "Representing Hill and the other rich guys was Francis Fox..."

• David Sirota [43:59]: "Boom shakalaka. You wanted me to show you the money? Well, there it is. There's your payoff."

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Key Takeaways

1. RFK's Assassination: Initiated a series of political maneuvers that ultimately facilitated the rise of conservative influence in the U.S. Senate.
2. James Buckley's Election: Served as a strategic foothold for the conservative movement to challenge and reshape campaign finance laws.
3. Buckley v. Vallejo: Established a Supreme Court precedent equating political spending with protected speech, undermining campaign finance reforms.
4. Lewis Powell's Role: Instrumental in expanding corporate First Amendment rights, ensuring sustained corporate influence in politics.
5. Proliferation of PACs: The legal victories paved the way for an explosion of corporate-backed political action committees, cementing the Master Plan's objectives.

This episode of Master Plan meticulously traces the legal and political strategies that transformed American democracy, highlighting the calculated efforts to entrench corporate power through judicial means. It underscores the enduring legacy of pivotal Supreme Court decisions that continue to influence the landscape of U.S. politics today.

Transcript

[David Sirota]

Before we dive in, just a reminder that this is the free version of Master Plan, but our paid subscribers get episodes early and ad free, and you get bonus content, interviews, documents and videos. More importantly, if you become a paid subscriber, you'll help fund this show and the investigative journalism we do at the Lever. Right now, we're offering a huge 50% off forever discount on a paid subscription. If you want bonus content and if you want to support our journalism, please go right now to lever news.com/50, that's lever news.com/50 to get the deal. Right now again, that's lever news.com /50. Now onto the episode the Lever.

[News Anchor]

My thanks to all of you. And now it's on to Chicago, and let's win there. Senator Robert Francis Kennedy died at 144am today, June 6, 1968.

[David Sirota]

We just finished the last episode in the mid-1970s. So you might be wondering, what are we doing back in 1968? And also, what does RFK have to do with a master plan to legalize corruption? Don't worry, I'm not going down a rabbit hole of Kennedy conspiracies. But stay with me here. You know that whole idea of chaos theory, the shorthand is the butterfly effect. A butterfly can flap its wings and Peking, and in Central park you get rain instead of sunshine. Well, the death of RFK had cascading effects that I don't think even the best politicos could have ever predicted. It was the first flap of the butterfly's wings. There were a few huge, obvious ripple effects from RFK's assassination. The Democrats nominated Hubert Humphrey in the disastrous 1968 Democratic convention, which led to Richard Nixon getting elected. And then, of course, Watergate. But there was another, often overlooked consequence, a tiny ripple that the master planners capitalized on that's still making waves today. Kennedy's assassination left a vacancy in the US Senate, which New York's Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller filled with a relatively obscure member of his own party rather than with another Democrat.

[News Anchor]

Governor Nelson Rockefeller today named New York Republican Congressman Charles Goodell to the Senate seat of the late Robert Kennedy. That term expires in January 1971.

[David Sirota]

Representative Charles Goodell, today mostly known as the father of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. But after Kennedy's assassination, Goodell was plucked from the House to finish out the late Senator Kennedy's term. Two years later, in 1970, Goodell was running for reelection. But rather than toeing the Republican Party's line, he was a vocal critic of the Nixon administration and the war in Vietnam. Not surprisingly, this put him on the President's famous enemies list. And Nixon's Vice President Spiro Agnew went.

[News Anchor]

On the attack, referring to him as part of an awful liberal radical coalition. Vice President Agnew said today the Goodell stimulates the type of leadership which encourages the dissident element in our society.

[David Sirota]

But the problem for the Nixon White House was 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 Democrats? Enter the long shot solution. Not only a better candidate in the short run, but also a man whose actions and political positions would eventually be incredibly useful to the master planners.

[News Anchor]

We want Buckley. We want Buckley. Referred to as the other Buckley. He is James, the older brother of columnist William Buckley. Buckley is a more likely prospect for an upset, especially if the liberal vote splits. It would provide the kind of victory the conservatives would really savor. Right here in the heartland of the.

[David Sirota]

Eastern liberal establishment, James Buckley became the nominee of the Conservative Party of New York. He was a long shot third party candidate with a populist message.

[News Anchor]

Isn't it about time we had a senator?

[David Sirota]

Right? James Buckley, man of the people. And by the people, I mean all us descendants of rich oil families.

[News Anchor]

James L. Buckley for Senator.

[David Sirota]

Here was an opportunity for the nascent conservative movement to gain a foothold in American politics. That first flap of the butterfly's wings led to this candidate at this moment. And while Nixon chose, at least personally not to endorse any candidate in the three way Senate race, behind the scenes his henchmen and the conservative movement had found a candidate they could bankroll.

[News Anchor]

Vice President Agnew campaigned in New York today against the reelection of one of his own party's candidates, Senator Charles Goodell, whom Agnew has denounced as a radical liberal. Agnew spoke at a fundraising luncheon attended mostly by Republicans backing conservative party candidate James Buckley.

[David Sirota]

There were more than a few heavy hitters at that fundraising lunch. Bankers, board chairs, businessmen and the former ambassador to Italy. On election night, their political machinations paid off.

[News Anchor]

The man who's number one is James Buckley, brother of columnist William F. He is a lawyer and businessman. Wealthy and cultivated, he's a minority victor. His two liberal opponents got more than 60% of the vote between them.

[David Sirota]

James Buckley became the first third party candidate elected to the U.S. senate in three decades. He'd only serve one term, losing in 1976. But in that short period of time, James Buckley became the perfect vehicle for the master planners playing the earnest outsider, the staunchly conservative Buckley looked like a real life Mr. Smith goes to Washington. But in 1975, Buckley worked with DC insiders to engineer a lawsuit that would strike the first and perhaps most important blow against America's new campaign finance laws. And the thing about Buckley's lawsuit is it wasn't done under the banner of rank corruption. He and his fellow plaintiffs cast the case as a crusade for free speech and third party rights. To quote Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic park, again, a butterfly can flap its wings and peeing and in Central park you get rain instead of sunshine. In this episode, we'll show how that first flap of a butterfly's wings. RFK's assassination ultimately provided the master planners with an opening in which they could test the legal ideas laid out in the Powell memo. Along the way, we'll give you a rare glimpse behind the scenes of how Supreme Court cases are decided by taking you into the inner sanctum of a notoriously secret branch of government. I'm David Sirota and this is Master Plan.

[News Anchor]

What about the master plan, huh?

[Rick Hasen]

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[David Sirota]

Okay, back to 1974, about four years after Buckley was elected to the U.S. senate. As we heard in the last couple of episodes, Lewis Powell had written his memo. He's now a one man sleeper cell on the Supreme Court. Simultaneously, the master planners are hard at work implementing his blueprint for a corporate takeover of American politics. One of the things they need to do to implement Powell's memo is destroy the laws that prevent them and their financial backers from spending unlimited amounts of money to buy elections, politicians and political power. One set of those laws has just been reluctantly enacted by President Gerald Ford. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, he signed several amendments to the Federal Election Campaign act, fika. And in broad strokes, those laws did four things the master planners hated.

[Rick Hasen]

One is imposing contribution and spending limits, one is imposing disclosure requirements, one is creating the Federal Election Commission, and one is setting up a system for public financing of presidential, but not congressional campaigns.

[David Sirota]

That's Rick Hassan. He's a professor of law and political science at ucla, where he also directs the Safeguarding Democracy Project. When Gerald Ford signed the amendment strengthening fika, it was held up as proof that America was moving on from Watergate and cleaning up government. But not so fast. While Ford was touting the new law in front of the cameras, his White House issued a written statement about FICA that showed how little the administration actually supported the law. The statement from Ford read, quote, although I do have reservations about the First Amendment implications inherent in the limits on individual contributions and candidate expenditures, I'm sure that such issues can be resolved in the courts. Hmm. It's almost as if that was the plan ever since the meeting about the Powell memo in Disney World back in episode four.

[News Anchor]

It's a small world after all.

[David Sirota]

On January 2, 1975, exactly one day after these new FICA amendments went into effect, a group of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in federal court. The first name on this list of plaintiffs was none other than the one, the only the third party conservative darling, Senator James Buckley, making the serious charge that FICA was violating the First Amendment. As Rick Hassin told us, this case marked a turning point in American law.

[Rick Hasen]

It's the foundational case for understanding the Supreme Court's constitutional approach to campaign finance questions. Everything flows from Buckley.

[David Sirota]

The defendant in this case was Francis Vallejo of the brand new Federal Election Commission created by fika. Vallejo was just a name. He was just the stand in representative of the government. But his side was tasked with protecting and upholding fica. The Buckley v. Vallejo case is complicated, but as Rick Hassan explained, the central issue was contribution and spending limits.

[Rick Hasen]

One of the provisions of the law said that a person could not spend more than $1,000 to independently support or oppose a candidate for office. So if you were living in a big city and you wanted to take out a big Billboard in the 1976 election and say, vote for Jimmy Carter, that would cost more than $1,000. That would be illegal.

[David Sirota]

Man, I wish we could Vote for Jimmy Carter again. Is that an option? Anyway, Buckley had already taken a vocal stand against FIKA in the Senate. In his opinion, those amendments, and FICA in general, made it harder for third party candidates like himself to run for office, let alone win. And as part of his arguments on the Senate floor, he repeatedly cited a man named Ralph Winter.

[News Anchor]

Winter is coming.

[David Sirota]

Winter was a law professor at Yale at the time. He'd also co authored a booklet for the American Enterprise Institute, a right leaning think tank. And that booklet made the radical argument that money in politics did not equal corruption and vote buying. It equaled free speech and free expression. In this booklet he wrote that quote, setting a limit on candidate expenditures sets a maximum on the political activities in which American citizens can engage and is thus unconstitutional. Of note the other author on this, a guy by the name of Bolton. Michael Bolton.

[News Anchor]

I could hardly believe it.

[David Sirota]

No, not Michael Bolton. John Bolton, the neocon lover of war and former adviser to George W. Bush. And Donald Trump. The one with the bushy mustache and the uncanny ability to survive more than 50 years in politics despite being deeply unpopular with just about everyone. Buckley makes Winter and Bolton's free speech arguments central to his case to dismantle the new post Watergate campaign finance laws. And he had an odd assort department of other plaintiffs with him. You might have heard the phrase that politics makes strange bedfellows. But honestly, I'm having a hard time thinking of a weirder combination than the group of plaintiffs attached to this lawsuit. There's Buckley, of course, but Also Senator Eugene McCarthy, the liberal anti war Democrat who challenged President Johnson in the 1968 presidential primary. Then there was the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Libertarian Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Conservative Party of the State of New York. Conservatives, Libertarians and Socialists joining forces on the same lawsuit. Dogs and cats living together.

[News Anchor]

Mass hysteria.

[David Sirota]

These were the obscure underdogs of the political sphere. But of course there was a master planner lurking in the background. And after hearing about him in the last episode, would it surprise you to learn that Charles Koch was bankrolling the lawsuit? It sure as shit didn't surprise me. Koch wanted to be able to give unlimited money to his presidential candidate of choice, a guy named Roger McBride from the brand new anti government Libertarian Party. I'm not sure Koch had enough money to propel McBride to victory. He won.2% of the popular vote and no electoral college votes. But then McBride went on to create the Little House on the Prairie TV series, so maybe it was a win after all. Anyhow, these Plaintiffs didn't see the new post Watergate campaign finance laws as a way to stop donors from buying votes, elections and legislation. No, they saw FIKA as an unconstitutional assault on donors. Right to free speech. Isn't it nice when people can find common ground? Aw, here's political science professor Rick Hasen explaining the plaintiff's argument.

[Rick Hasen]

You know, not everybody is talented. They can't make their own TV ads. And so how did they try to participate in elections? With money. And if you limit money, then you're basically favoring some people over others.

[David Sirota]

The New York Civil Liberties Union argued that these laws were a form of overreach and provided a way for the government to stifle political speech. Senators Buckley and McCarthy saw the laws as unfairly beneficial to incumbent candidates. They'd both been outsider insurgent candidates, meaning they didn't have the financial support of the two major parties political machinery. Instead, both men depended on money from wealthy donors to kickstart their campaigns. Buckley argued that FIKA set such low spending limits that it made it much harder for an unknown outsider candidate like himself to compete.

[Rick Hasen]

If you want to 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 say that candidates are limited in how much money they can spend, or a person is limited in how much money they could contribute for political speech, that certainly affects the rights of speech and association.

[David Sirota]

Despite this argument, the first federal court that heard the case upheld FIKA on the grounds that it prevented elections from becoming auctions sold to the highest bidder. But the ink was barely dry on that decision when Buckley and his menagerie of plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard the case on November 10, 1975, eight days after I was born. Imagine an abnormally warm day just weeks before Thanksgiving while my mom is taking me home in a swaddle. In New Haven, Connecticut, groups of lawyers, defendants and plaintiffs made their way up the marble steps, past the statues of the Contemplation of Justice and Authority of Law, through the stately Greco Roman columns and sculpted bronze doors into the great hall of the U.S. supreme Court. They file into the court chamber and arrange themselves at tables in front of the bench where the justices sit. Chief Justice Warren Berger, a Richard Nixon appointee, presided.

[News Anchor]

We'll hear arguments today and Buckley against Galleo and others. Council, you may proceed whenever you're ready.

[David Sirota]

Arguing first on behalf of Buckley is Ralph Winter, the same man who'd written that booklet about money and speech, and the same man that Buckley had cited in his Senate speeches against the FICA amendments.

[News Anchor]

The burden of the FECA thus fall heavily on those challenging the status quo. By empowering the ability of challengers both to raise and spend money, this legislation makes it acutely difficult for them to overcome the exposure incumbents already enjoy.

[David Sirota]

Money, he's saying, allows candidates to reach their voters. Without it, their speech is stifled, which he says is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

[News Anchor]

I don't think there could be any question about this. If there were five restaurants in a town and someone was about to open a new one. An ordinance severely limiting the amount of newspaper advertising restaurants might buy would be recognized for all for what it is, an attempt by the existing restaurants to freeze out newcomers.

[David Sirota]

Arguing the other side in favor of protecting FICA and upholding contribution and expenditure limits was Archibald Cox. Yes, that's the same Archibald Cox who led the Watergate investigation on the purposes.

[News Anchor]

As we see them are first, to protect the honor and integrity of government operations in both the legislative and executive branches against the corrosive influence of large contributions, the pressure to raise large money, and the resulting sense of indebtedness, which, of course, does not affect every contribution. But there appear to have been too many of that character.

[David Sirota]

He's referring, of course, to the literal bags of cash delivered to Nixon's 1972 campaign, the illegal contributions that he prosecuted during Watergate and that we heard about back in episode two. Cox, along with the other lawyers on the government side, pointed out that contributing money to campaigns wasn't protected speech, and neither was campaign spending. They argued that money doesn't buy speech, it buys votes, which is illegal. They argued that unchecked money in politics caused the kind of corruption that America had just seen during Watergate. It bought votes and influence and government favors, and therefore the Constitution allowed it to be regulated. Now, you just heard me say that Cox was defending FICA on behalf of the government. But remember, the Ford administration, AKA the government, didn't actually like fika. Here's Rick Hasin again.

[Rick Hasen]

People who are working for the federal government, some of them side with Buckley and the plaintiffs.

[David Sirota]

Essentially, Ford allowed his henchmen to undermine the defense of the law that they were supposed to be upholding.

[Rick Hasen]

And in fact, the government ends up filing two briefs in the case. One brief on behalf of the Federal Election Commission that defends the law, and then one brief from the Solicitor General.

[David Sirota]

The Solicitor General, the number three at the Department of Justice, whose main job is to defend government agencies at the Supreme Court. And at this moment in time, The Solicitor General was Robert Bork. Yes, that Robert Bork, the only guy in the Justice Department willing to follow Nixon's orders and fire Archibald Cox during Watergate's Saturday Night Massacre. Now, as Ford's Solicitor General in the campaign finance case, this was something of a rematch. And Bork was again the hatchet man, taking the unprecedented step of filing a.

[Rick Hasen]

Brief that says it is not taking a position, but essentially argues that big chunks of the law are unconstitutional.

[David Sirota]

In essence, Bork was winking and nodding to the court, telling the Justices that, hey, the President signed this, so we're technically obligated to defend this thing, but really we want you to knock it down. And that's exactly what the court did on January 30, 1976. At first, the ruling seemed to stand up the new campaign finance law.

[News Anchor]

The Court holds that the contribution limits do not directly impinge upon the rights of individual citizens and candidates to engage in political debate and discussion.

[David Sirota]

But then came the right hook to the face.

[News Anchor]

The Court holds that the expenditure limitations are violative of First Amendment guarantees and they are unconstitutional.

[David Sirota]

Boom. Down goes a big part of fika. Basically, the Supreme Court upheld the contribution limits, saying they only imposed a minor restriction on free speech. But the Court also said that if the government limited how much money a candidate or a special interest group could spend on something like a billboard or a TV commercial, that was a direct infringement on their ability to communicate. So they struck down expenditure limits. This all may seem like some small technicality, but it was huge. James Buckley and his fellow plaintiffs had convinced the United States Supreme Court to agree in part to the Master Planner's radical argument that money wasn't a tool of corruption that could be regulated. Money was now a form of constitutionally protected speech. This precedent was everything. It would become the cornerstone of the entire Master Plan, a way to destroy all campaign finance and anti corruption laws with the blessing of the highest court in the land. Around the same time that the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Buckley v. Vallejo case, Justices were also dealing with two other cases about the First Amendment and freedom of speech. These were cases about abortion and drug prices that didn't seem related to campaign finance at all. The butterfly effect. You get rain instead of sunshine. So let's start with abortion. An alternative newspaper in Charlottesville, Virginia, was running advertisements for abortions that were legal in New York but not legal in Virginia. The editor of the newspaper, Jeffrey Bigelow, was charged and convicted of advertising abortion services, which violated Virginia law. Bigelow's case eventually ended up in front of the Supreme Court in 1975, where he was represented by the ACLU, and they argued that the conviction violated the First Amendment. Watching this case very closely was a guy by the name of Alan Morrison, who worked for Ralph Nader's consumer protection group, Public Citizen. Morrison was interested in the Bigelow abortion case because he thought it might be an opportunity to create a new First Amendment protection. In an interview, he told us that he was arguing for a consumer's right not just to speak, but to listen to new information.

[News Anchor]

I saw this as a case in which we should file our brief testing the waters on the listener theory.

[David Sirota]

So Morrison filed an amicus brief in the abortion case, outlining his argument.

[News Anchor]

You are depriving listeners, Virginia citizens who want to go to New York to have an abortion where it's perfectly legal and Virginia has no basis for keeping you out of doing that.

[David Sirota]

Morrison's brief swayed the opinion of Justice Harry Blackmun, who would use this argument when he wrote the Supreme Court's majority opinion. Morrison's goal of creating a new precedent had worked like a charm. He then turned to the case he was really interested in as a consumer rights attorney. A case in which a woman named Lynn Jordan was trying to challenge the laws that prevented pharmacies from advertising prescription drug prices. Jordan had had a hysterectomy and required all kinds of medications. But state laws prohibited pharmacies from advertising drug prices on the grounds that that kind of advertising would somehow make pharmacists less professional.

[News Anchor]

There were about 34 states that had laws like Virginia that forbade the advertising of the price of prescription drugs. And the Federal Trade Commission had demonstrated conclusively that the prices of prescription drugs in those states were higher than it was elsewhere.

[David Sirota]

So with Morrison's help, Lynn Jordan sued. In this case, the state of Virginia insisted that such laws were allowed because product advertisements were not political speech. They were commercial speech, which wasn't protected under the First Amendment. That's where Morrison whipped out the recent win in that Bigelow abortion case, the one about listener rights.

[News Anchor]

We built on Bigelow and said that the First Amendment doesn't distinguish between commercial speech and non commercial speech.

[David Sirota]

Speech that he argued, should be protected under the First Amendment because it allowed the public to be more important informed. They, as citizens and consumers, had a right to listen and a right to know. Once again, the argument found an ally in Justice Blackman, who delivered the ruling in May 1976.

[News Anchor]

We further hold that so called commercial speech is not wholly outside the protection of the first and fourteenth Amendments. The individual consumer and society in general may have strong interest in the free flow of commercial information.

[David Sirota]

The ruling was hailed in the press as another big Ralph Nader backed win for consumers.

[News Anchor]

Consumer groups won a major victory today before the Supreme Court. 1 they say that eventually could lead to lower prices for funerals and eyeglasses and even medical and legal services.

[David Sirota]

All right. Hooray. People who had been kept in the dark about prescription drug prices suddenly had the information they needed to make decisions that could save them money. They were thrilled. This was a huge victory for Alan Morrison and Ralph Nader and consumers rights. Score one for the underdog, the little guy, the champion of the people. Play us some celebration music, baby. This is a huge victory. Wait a minute, Wait, hang on, hang on. Is that a fax machine? I didn't even know I had one of those things. Huh? This is from my producer. Oh, shit. No way. Okay, hey, cut the music. Okay, let me amend what I just said. This would end up not being a huge win. In fact, it was the opposite. Sure, this may have been a victory for some little guy consumers, but for campaign finance and corruption, the ruling was about to be transformed into a powerful weapon for the biggest of big guy oligarchs. The law of unintended consequences was about to kick in with a nudge from the Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. Remember him? Powell had initially argued that there was, quote, no constitutional right to know, but would change his mind when faced with a golden opportunity to further his master plan. Okay, let's review. It's 1976. The master planners had used the accidental but fortuitous election of Senator James Buckley to get the Supreme Court to validate a previously radical theory that money wasn't a tool of corruption to buy votes, but was instead a constitutionally protected form of speech.

[News Anchor]

The Court holds that the expenditure limitation are violative of First Amendment guarantees and they are unconstitutional.

[David Sirota]

Then Ralph Nader's organization, a group that's supposed to be the polar opposite of the master planners, it goes into court on behalf of consumers and gets the court to say that corporations have at least some of the same First Amendment protections that individuals do.

[News Anchor]

We further hold that so called commercial speech is not wholly outside the protection of the first and 14th Amendments.

[David Sirota]

So now let's turn to the final case in our lineup, the one that ultimately features the master planner you heard about in the last two episodes, Lewis F. Powell of Powell Memo fame. It's still 1976, America's bicentennial.

[News Anchor]

Happy birthday, USA.

[David Sirota]

We're in Boston Massachusetts, where another important legal case was building steam in the Bay State's courtrooms.

[Adam Winkler]

First National bank of Boston vs Bellotti really began as a battle between Massachusetts lawmakers and one of the most influential businessmen in Boston. A man by the name of Richard Hill who ran the First national bank of Boston.

[David Sirota]

That's Adam Winkler, he's a professor of law at ucla and he wrote extensively about this case in his book we the Corporations. And while you might not be familiar with this case, you should know that it paved the way for Citizens United. If RFK's assassination and Lynn Jordan's hysterectomy are flapping butterfly wings, this case is mothra. In 1976, Massachusetts passed its own state statute expanding on the amendments to FIKA that had passed in Washington D.C. essentially, the new Massachusetts law barred corporations from making contributions or expenditures to influence the voting on any ballot initiatives. Unless it was an initiative that clearly affected that particular business.

[Adam Winkler]

Any ballot measure on individual taxation would be automatically deemed immaterial to their business.

[David Sirota]

Probably not coincidentally, that same year there was a proposal to put a constitutional Amendment on the 1976 Massachusetts state ballot that would raise taxes on the wealthy.

[Adam Winkler]

And lawmakers in Massachusetts wanted institute a graduated income tax. Basically say that individuals who made the most money paid relatively higher percentage of their income in taxes.

[David Sirota]

Individuals like Richard Hill and other high powered executives. Which sounds reasonable, right? Rich people paying their fair share. What a concept. Suffice it to say Richard Hill and his cronies were not stoked about this idea. But under Massachusetts new law, they were barred from spending any money out of their corporate treasuries on influencing the outcome of this ballot measure. Never mind that they could still spend their own money, just not the company's much larger pile of money. They were not too happy about this. And what do good Americans do when they're unhappy? They go to court.

[Adam Winkler]

Richard Hill took it to court and he argued in court that this Massachusetts law that restricted corporations from spending money on these individual tax related ballot measures was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

[David Sirota]

Hill and First national bank lost in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. So they appealed this case to the U.S. supreme Court, which heard it in 1977. Representing Hill and the other rich guys was Francis Fox, who reminded the Court that justices had recently ruled that money is not corruption.

[News Anchor]

Money is speech. Speech is protected unless and until it comes up against a compelling state purpose in carefully drafted legislation which serves that purpose in the least restrictive manner available. In other words, the prohibition should be made to justify itself. The focus should be on the Prohibition corporate speaker should not be made to justify his prospective speech.

[David Sirota]

Side note, you may remember that in his memo, Lewis Powell suggested that corporations take a page out of the lefty liberal playbook and file briefs amicus curiae in the Supreme Court to influence Justices decisions. No surprise then that corporate America was more than happy to file amicus briefs on behalf of Richard Hill's First national bank of Boston. And that two of those amicus briefs came from groups that might sound familiar. The U.S. chamber of Commerce, for whom Lewis Powell wrote the Powell memo, and the Pacific Legal foundation, which had been one of the legal groups inspired by the Powell memo. But back to our case. Representing Massachusetts is that State's Attorney General Francis. He's simply the name on the case, but it's the Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General Thomas Kiley, who's defending the state in court. The main thrust of his argument is that businesses are not people and therefore do not have First Amendment rights.

[News Anchor]

We start first from the proposition though, that corporations do not have First Amendment rights per se, that they are not.

[David Sirota]

Natural persons persons, and that they may.

[News Anchor]

Be restricted to protection of the rights that are contained in their charters.

[David Sirota]

The Justices heard the oral arguments and then a few days later they met in what's called a conference. Now, the Supreme Court is a notoriously secretive institution, not Vatican level, but there's a fair amount that goes on behind the scenes that the public knows very little about. Here's Adam Winkler again.

[Adam Winkler]

The conference is a closed door meeting of the Justices. No one else is allowed in, no law clerks or secretaries or messengers. It's just the Justices and they go around the room in a set order with the Chief justice being the first to speak and then every other justice coming in order of seniority, and they state their view on the case and how they expect to vote.

[David Sirota]

So the Justices meet, they vote and they assign someone to write the opinion. Typically, over the course of some months, they'll pass around some drafts and agree to a final opinion, which usually reflects their votes in the initial conference. But that's not what happened in First national bank of Boston versus Bollotti. Normally we wouldn't know what went on in conference, but in this case, thanks to Adam Winkler, we got a rare glimpse of the messy behind the scenes for his excellent book, we the Corporations. Adam scoured the papers of the Supreme Court Justices, and what he uncovered in the hundreds of pages of letters, memos and messages illuminated what happened next.

[Adam Winkler]

As the Justices went around the room at the conference, the majority of Justices did not think that the Court had to say that corporations have the same free speech rights as people. Instead, they supported a narrower view.

[David Sirota]

They thought that Massachusetts law needed to give corporations the opportunity to show that the tax measure on the ballot affected their businesses. It might, for instance, make it harder for corporations like First national bank to recruit executives if those executives would have to pay higher income taxes. But a limited ruling like that was as far as most of the justices were willing to go. They weren't willing to go further and say that corporations had the exact same First Amendment rights as citizens. However, one holdout on the court saw his chance. We're going to need some. Some dark, scary music here. No, no, that's. That's just creepy. I want listener to really feel this. Something darker. No, no, no, not like that. I mean, that's dark, but in a different way. Look, just play the darkest, scariest song you can find from 1977. There, there. That's perfect.

[News Anchor]

Perfect, perfect.

[David Sirota]

Let's welcome back to the stage the OG Master planner himself, Justice Lewis Powell. In the justice conference about Bellotti, Powell wants to go big, really big. He didn't want a narrow ruling. He wanted a decision that would blow the doors off of free speech limitations for corporations permanently.

[Adam Winkler]

Powell argued that Massachusetts law should be struck down because corporations have the same free speech right as individuals, that Massachusetts could not limit corporations to only spending on things that were material to the business, that it was up to the business to decide what to spend its money on. And lawmakers had no role to play in that decision. It was only Powell who had that very broad perspective at the conference. And the other seven justices who agreed to strike down Massachusetts law thought instead that the Court should rule narrowly.

[David Sirota]

One of those seven other justices, William Brennan, was assigned to write the Court's final ruling, which would strike down the Massachusetts law, but only in a narrow fashion. But as Brennan started to write, he ran into a problem. The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that this kind of ruling wouldn't be effective, that the broader question about whether corporations have the same political speech rights as individuals would simply show up again in another case.

[Adam Winkler]

And on that broader question, Brennan was clear. He thought corporations did not have the same political speech rights as individuals. And as a result, he said to the other justices, I'm not the right one to write this opinion.

[David Sirota]

Justice Brennan issued a written statement to his colleagues laying out the reasons for his crisis of confidence. It was kind of an oh, shit moment. In the margins of his copy of Brennan's letter, Justice Lewis Powell wrote, wow. With an Exclamation point, expressing his surprise at this turn of events. Of course, it was also an amazing opportunity. Powell wrote another memo. Man, this guy loves memos. In this new memo to the other Justices, he subtly pitched himself as the replacement to write the Court's majority opinion that would become the law of the land.

[Adam Winkler]

Powell was eager to expand the political speech rights of corporations. Massachusetts is trying to prevent corporations from doing what, what he thinks is the most important thing they can do, which is to get politically active and to fight for their rights and to defeat the rising tide of business regulation and what Powell saw as nothing short of socialism.

[David Sirota]

Chief Justice Warren Berger let Powell write the opinion. But remember Powell, who argued that the entire law should be struck down on the grounds that corporations have free speech rights. He was still in the minority on the Court. Justice Byron White had always felt the Massachusetts law should be upheld. He was joined by Justice Brennan, who no longer supported the idea of even a narrow ruling. Justice Thurgood Marshall thought corporations could be restricted in political spending. And Justice Rehnquist argued that corporations had no political speech rights at all. That meant four Justices against Powell. And Chief Justice Berger had also started to waver, wondering if striking down the Massachusetts law would undermine federal anti corruption laws. This was turning into a real nail biter of a court case. Powell was in danger of losing the majority. But then a light bulb went off in Powell's brain. He remembered that Virginia pharmacy case, the one we just discussed earlier in this episode. In his genteel Southern manner, Powell referenced the case and reminded his fellow Justices that they literally just voted for that ruling, which said the public has an inherent right to hear corporate speech. So by that logic, didn't the voters of Massachusetts also have a right to hear what the First national bank of Boston and other businesses had to say about ballot measures?

[Adam Winkler]

So Powell uses Blackmun's argument from Virginia Pharmacy to secure his majority and in the end, radically rewrite American constitutional law.

[David Sirota]

Powell convinced just enough justices, including Justice Burger, to join him in a 5 to 4 ruling that said that the Massachusetts restriction on political contributions by corporations violated the First Amendment and was thus.

[Adam Winkler]

Unconstitutional, giving corporations a broad and expansive right to spend their money on politics and elections. That was a decision that would really radically transform American democracy.

[David Sirota]

The author of the Powell memo had been alone in the initial conference. And now this master planner had forever enshrined his own beliefs into a law that favored corporations, not people. Here's Justice Powell reading the decision.

[News Anchor]

The First Amendment's primary concern, and therefore the Court's concern Always has been the preservation of free and uninhibited dissemination of.

[David Sirota]

Information and ideas, especially if that information and those ideas conform to the Powell memo. Am I right?

[News Anchor]

If the restrictive view of corporate speech taken by the Massachusetts court were accepted, government would have the power to deprive society of the views of corporations on all issues other than those that could be proved to affect adversely their property or business interest.

[David Sirota]

How sad for us if we were to be deprived of the views of corporations. You can't hear it, but I'm rolling my eyes here. Powell elaborated further on this point in the final written opinion stating, quote, it is the type of speech indispensable to decision making in a democracy. And this is not less true because the speech comes from a corporation rather than an individual. Thanks to Powell's ruling, corporations now had even more First Amendment rights, and the consequences have been enormous.

[Adam Winkler]

The principles established by the Bellotti case, that corporations effectively have the same First Amendment speech rights as individuals, that it was inappropriate for businesses to be limited in political spending campaigns would be very, very influential and completely transform American jurisprudence over time.

[David Sirota]

Put another way, the case created the principle infamously summarized by Massachusetts future governor Mitt Romney.

[News Anchor]

They brought us whole binders full of women.

[David Sirota]

Yeah, he said that, too. I mean, this.

[News Anchor]

Corporations are people, my friend.

[David Sirota]

Boom shakalaka. You wanted me to show you the money? Well, there it is. There's your payoff. Lewis Powell had successfully blown open the floodgates for the kind of corporate spending that his memo said was necessary for a big business takeover of the country. We started the 1970s with a push to get money out of politics. We end it with a flood of cash. And Buckley especially proved to be the biggest crack in the dam. That decision allowed candidates to spend as much as they wanted, no spending limits, provided you could get your hands on the cash. Of course, there were plenty of wealthy people and corporations who had the kind of cash that could buy elections. But the Buckley decision had ensured that candidates were only allowed to take a limited amount. So money found a different way to flow. It would go to the master planners, supposedly independent organizations that could spend unlimited amounts of cash on the candidate's behalf, provided that these organizations weren't explicitly coordinating with the candidates they were supporting, which, of course, they would never. Yeah, it was bullshit. But legally speaking, these organizations could insist they didn't explicitly coordinate. Not surprisingly, these independent expenditures became the way to get money into the system and buy elections.

[News Anchor]

Independent organizations which support Reagan can spend and spend, thanks to a loophole in the campaign law. There is no limit on what these independent organizations can spend.

[David Sirota]

These so called independent organizations, otherwise known as political action committees or PACs, became the vehicle for getting money into campaigns and they were growing in number. In 1974 there were about 600 PACs and only 89 were affiliated with corporations. By 1980, after the Supreme Court's Buckley and Balotti rulings changed the game, the number of PACs nearly quadrupled to 2300 and nearly half of them had corporate ties. This is simplifying things a bit, but the tide of corporate spending on political activities rose exponentially in that six year period and no one with any power seemed to be interested in doing anything to stop it. Except for one guy, a guy who looked like the opposite of the hippie liberal reformers and their legions of lefty activists. This was a combat veteran and a war hero, a conservative Republican from a super conservative state. Burned in a campaign finance scandal. He would spend the rest of his life crusading against the Master Planners scheme to legalize corruption. He was pissed and he was going to take his fight to both parties.

[News Anchor]

Voters, those of us privileged to hold a public office have ourselves to blame for the sickness in American public life today. And we are the defenders of a campaign finance system that is nothing less than an elaborate influence peddling scheme in which both parties conspire to stay in office by selling the country to the highest bidder.

[David Sirota]

And this guy wasn't just complaining about the problem, he had a plan of his own. That's next time on Master Plan. Thinking of a massive.

[News Anchor]

I earned everything.

[Rick Hasen]

I got.

[David Sirota]

Thinking about Masters. Master Plan is a production of the Lever. This episode was written by Laura Krantz and me, David Sirota. Our production team includes Jared Mayer, Ula Culpa, Arjun Singh and Ronnie Riccabene. Our editor is Ron Doyle. Fact checking of this episode by Chris Walker. Original music is by Nick Byron Campbell. Mixing by Louis Weeks. Special thanks to Rick Hassan, Alan Morrison and Adam Winkler. You can listen and subscribe to Master Plan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube Music or wherever else you get your podcasts for ad Free episodes, Exclusive bonus content transcripts with links to our sources and access to the Lever's entire archive of investigative journalism. Please visit lever news.com to become a subscriber.

[News Anchor]

Well, I'm not a crooked I earned.

[David Sirota]

Everything I got got, got got got got got got got got got got.