[EL] Poor Katrina

[Mark Schmitt]

I have a little sideline in trying to get people to recognize that "The 
Powell Memo" is a legend created almost entirely by the left. A few 
years ago, I went through every history of the conservative movement, 
sympathetic or not, published before 2000 and there was only one brief 
mention of the memo, in a history of Heritage. The memo was probably 
read by fewer than ten people when Powell first sent it to his neighbor, 
and not many more after Jack Anderson made it public two years later.  
And what Powell, who was not a movement conservative, recommended bore 
little resemblance to the actual conservative policy and media 
infrastructure.

But with each passing year, its importance grows, to the point that 
Hedrick Smith wrote a whole book about it last year. It's just too 
tempting to tell the story this way.

It's unfortunate, because vanden Heuvel otherwise has a good point about 
the emergence of an extremely activist Court.

I'm going to put out an updated version of this article soon, looking at 
the more recent explosion of interest in the memo:  
http://prospect.org/article/legend-powell-memo

Also worth noting, incidentally, that according to Rick Hasen's article 
on the drafting of Buckley, Powell was one of the Justices involved in 
drafting the decision and was comfortable with the contribution limits, 
and presumably with the aggregate limits as well.



------ Original Message ------
From: "Smith, Brad" <BSmith at law.capital.edu>
To: "law-election at UCI.edu" <law-election at uci.edu>
Sent: 4/12/2014 8:11:51 AM
Subject: [EL] Poor Katrina

>Katrina Van Heuvel's column (in today's links, below) is a of a sort 
>that always makes me chuckle. Leave aside her notion that any 
>discussion of political strategy "the right" is some sort of 
>illegitimate plot. When Lewis Powell wrote the memo she uses as her 
>lead, not only were there no aggregate limits, which is all McCutcheon 
>struck down, there were no limits on how much an individual could 
>contribute to a campaign at all. So after more than 40 years of a "war 
>against American citizens," the nefarious Powell and his ilk are not 
>yet back to square one. Someone on "the right" needs to sack the 
>generals. Or maybe "the right" just playing the really really really 
>long game.
>
>Bradley A. Smith
>
>Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault
>
>    Professor of Law
>
>Capital University Law School
>
>303 E. Broad St.
>
>Columbus, OH 43215
>
>614.236.6317
>
>http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu 
>[law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Rick Hasen 
>[rhasen at law.uci.edu]
>Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 11:29 PM
>To:law-election at UCI.edu
>Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/12/14
>“The war against American citizens”
>Posted on April 11, 2014 8:08 pmby Rick Hasen
>Katrina vanden Heuvel WaPo column:
>
>>In 1971, before becoming a Supreme Court justice, Lewis F. Powell Jr. 
>>penned a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor of the U.S. Chamber of 
>>Commerce advocating a comprehensive strategy in favor of corporate 
>>interests. Powell wrote, “Under our constitutional system, especially 
>>with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most 
>>important instrument for social, economic and political change.”
>>
>>In last week’s ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, 
>>the Supreme Court was not a mere instrument so much as a blowtorch, 
>>searing a hole in the fabric of our fragile democracy.
>>
>Posted incampaign finance, Supreme Court
>
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