Talk:Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Re: this is the guy

This is the guy who made bribery legal in America. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeBee2020 (talk • contribs) 18:09, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Why no mention of Powell’s secret conservative activist memo delivered to the US Chamber of Commerce shortly before his appointment to the US Supreme Court? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ServedNavyDeepSeaDiver (talk • contribs) 11:17, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Bot-created subpage

A temporary subpage at User:Polbot/fjc/Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. was automatically created by a perl script, based on this article ((ooops, if that is a dead link, then try this)) at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges. The subpage should either be merged into this article, or moved and disambiguated. Polbot (talk) 18:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Powell memo

I think the section on the Powell memo is in serious need of improvement and NPOV cleanup. After a cursory search, I can't find a verifiable source that the memo even exists, let alone is responsible for everything attributed to it. --Gotophilk (talk) 03:38, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I tagged the article. It needs sources other than interest groups, and the ref tags are all messed up. Janus303 (talk) 05:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

The Powell memo is definitely authentic. It's in the Powell Archives at Washington and Lee University School of Law. I've added a link.

The section has WP:NPOV and WP:RS problems, but that could be fixed by doing a Google search for the memo and selecting out the WP:RSs, of which there are many. That includes American Prospect, PBS and the New York Times. His attacks on Ralph Nader definitely illustrate the climate of the times and Powell's personal opinions, and make it worth including. --Nbauman (talk) 17:20, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

The entire page is BS - Powell was a far-right activist, not any sort of moderate. Moreover, his memo was a call to action to the US Chambers of Commerce and other rightist groups to start the modern wingnut welfare system and create a right-wing media, academia and court system. The idea that the socialists had taken over the country and Lewis Powell's fascistic memo was somehow exposing them is absolute bunk. And of course all that market fundie-dominated Wikipedia will discuss is whether the Powell memo is real - which is a very nice Tea Party approach. Yeah, focus on the Kendonesian birth certificate, not any of the issues. I am glad that issue was dealt with promptly. MD — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.112.229.222 (talk) 21:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Can't help but feel that the last paragraph of the "Memorandum" section is slanted towards minimizing the effects of Powell's personal opinions on his later Supreme Court decisions - for a Supreme Court justice to propose that there should exist "constant surveillence" of textbooks & media is troubling. To say that this memo "did little but convey the thinking among businessmen at the time" really minimizes the impact of Powell's statements, esp. given the recent Supreme Court Citizens United decision. In any case, the paragraph contains opinion, & should be changed to reflect a more balanced view of Powell's opinions & the effect they had on decisions on the court.

B-class review

Failed for WP:BIO, due to insufficient inline citations - numerous unreferenced paragraphs present. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Citation needed? It says his "Political party" was: "Democratic Party"

The Infobox says that his Political party was: "Democratic Party".

That might be true, but shouldn't there be some kind of numbered "footnote" hyperlinking to a reliable, published source that 'said' so?

Isn't this a good example of an opportunity to affix one of those little "citation needed" tags?

I am wondering, whether it is really TRUE that his Political party was the "Democratic Party". Maybe so... but, note that the Infobox does also say, that he was Nominated by Richard M. Nixon -- a Republican.

So, in any event, if Powell's "Political party" really was the "Democratic Party", then there should exist some good newspaper stories, or books or magazines, (online or otherwise) that say so... or that "quote" someone as having said so [or written so]. . . . (right?)

Just my 0.02 ... --Mike Schwartz (talk) 01:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC) If Powell's thinking was dominated by capitalist, neo-liberal motivations, is it not naive to give as a fact that his support of abortion (in Roe versus Wade) was motivated by a feeling of compassion generated by a botched abortion, and not by those same capitalist, neo-liberal, materialist and uncompassionate motivations? Behind the abortion movement were the oligarchs and their ideological fellow travellers. Let us not simply accept what Powell may have said about the matter as the truthCklc (talk) 02:54, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

why no mention

of how many people died to to his efforts to defend tobacco against surgeon general rulings?Juror1 (talk) 10:49, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

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Powell Memorandum in Intro

I've removed the sections pertaining to the Powell memorandum in the lede. In addition to being largely repetitive, they constituted a third of the introduction over two paragraphs. This seems wholly disproportionate, and I have accordingly taken them out. (Furthermore, I am not sure whether a Greenpeace blog post qualifies as a reliable source, but that's another story).

Atchom (talk) 02:56, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Firstly, the Powell memo deserves its own article. It’s the subject of numerous academic papers, books, and articles. Second, it belongs in the lead. Greenpeace has nothing to do with this, other than they were the first organized group to bring this topic to the public when everyone was asleep at the wheel. Viriditas (talk) 00:15, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I'll see if I can find the old revision and restore something to the lede. As I haven't seen the old lede, I can't say that the memorandum wasn't overrepresented in it, but I agree that it should at least be mentioned. 2601:648:8200:990:0:0:0:756C (talk) 19:06, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Date of memorandum

Article currently says

On August 23, 1971, prior to accepting Nixon's nomination to the Supreme Court, Powell was commissioned by his neighbor Eugene B. Sydnor Jr., a close friend and education director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to write a confidential memorandum for the chamber...

But, the WLU web page about the memorandum says:

On August 23, 1971, less than two months before he was nominated to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. mailed a confidential memorandum to his friend Eugene B. Sydnor...

If Powell mailed the memorandum on August 23, 1971, it must have been begun at an earlier date. So our article misstates the history. Some kind of fix is needed, either an editorial one changing the description, or (preferably) addition of new info fleshing out the timeline. 2601:648:8200:990:0:0:0:756C (talk) 19:12, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Cato, the Business Roundtable, Manhattan Institute and Heritage are not all "Right-Wing Organizations"

That is clearly a politicized description of what are mainstream conservative, libertarian, and pro-business groups. Is the AFL-CIO a "left wing" institution? What about the ACLU and most American higher education?

Please remove the political moniker and use a more neutral term, such as conservative, libertarian, or pro-business groups. 24.127.33.121 (talk) 20:02, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Your alternative is not much better. "Pro-business" assumes the other side is not. It also assumes that taking care of employees, paying them living wages, providing health care, maternity leave, sick leave, etc. is somehow "anti-business". That’s an extreme POV that only has currency in the US, and is seen as corrupt and inhuman by most people. Further, we know for a fact that the groups you describe are indeed right wing and are funded by right wing interest groups. This idea that using the "pro-business" moniker as a shield or distraction from their true goals is the issue. And the idea that higher education is left wing is a conspiracy theory invented by the John Birch Society. What is true, is that when people are educated, they tend to embrace the values of liberalism. Note, this does not make someone a communist, a socialist, or a Marxist. What are liberal values? Read the article.

• believing in equality and individual liberty
• supporting private property and individual rights
• supporting the idea of limited constitutional government
• recognising the importance of related values such as pluralism, toleration, autonomy, bodily integrity, and consent

This is precisely why conservatives are anti-education, and explains why they are to the right of liberal values. Modern conservatives in the US are against equality, individual liberty, individual rights, plurality, toleration, autonomy, bodily integrity, and consent. There is some debate as to whether conservatives even support private property, as many of their positions seem to encourage the taking of property from other people. Conservatism is a regressive philosophy. It is anti-democratic and seeks to reinstate aristocracy (in whatever form, oligarchic, religious, or simply plutocracy). Conservatism has reached its logical endpoint, which is fascism. This isn’t rocket science. Viriditas (talk) 22:42, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Trying to parse this

His experiences as a corporate lawyer and a director on the board of Phillip Morris from 1964 until his appointment to the Supreme Court made him a champion of the tobacco industry who railed against the growing scientific evidence linking smoking to cancer deaths. He argued, unsuccessfully, that tobacco companies' First Amendment rights were being infringed when news organizations were not giving credence to the cancer denials of the industry.

It's hard for me in 2023 to understand where Powell was coming from. Why should news orgs have given credence to industry denials of medical science? Where's the sense in this? What am I missing? Viriditas (talk) 11:15, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Are there more sources for this? My interpretation is corrupting the courts such that they misrepresent the Constitution to make judgments where paid disinformation and avocacy are free speech protected by the Constitution, but not independent fact checking. Thus violating the spirit of the Constitution where the state suppresses and censors independent expert assessment. 206.248.143.75 (talk) 14:28, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

This is much easier to understand in 2023 than it was in the 1970s. Then, people largely held to democratic, liberal values and tended to respect scientists and science. Today, people speak of "alternative facts," disrespect science and educated experts, and almost expect corporations to buy whatever expert they need to lie for them. Powell was the pioneer of this with his defense of Big Tobacco, and the "Memorandum" was the "charter" document that got us to Reagan, W., Cheney and Trump. Wikijoeb (talk) 23:07, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Issues with quote veracity

The explicit goal of the memo was not to destroy democracy, though its emphasis on political institution-building as a concentration of big business power, particularly updating the Chamber's efforts to influence federal policy, has had that effect.

I'm wondering if this accurate. Many businessmen and business interests came forward after this and were quoted saying 1) they didn't want more people to vote, they wanted less, since conservatives could only win elections and create policies favoring billionaires and corporations when the vote was suppressed as conservative policies were inherently unpopular with the public, and 2) they wanted to specifically destroy democratic institutions and replace them with a kind of managed democracy, like the kind we now see in Russia and other authoritarian regimes, where there is the appearance of democracy, but it stops at appearances, while the oligarchs, in coordination with the state and very often even religious institutions, control everything behind the scenes. This idea that the memo did not intend to do this seems misguided. In other words, the only reason America turned to the right was because of the anti-democratic push by the right. This is pretty well supported in the literature. Viriditas (talk) 08:50, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Last call

Okay, it's been about four years since I called for splitting the Powell memo out into its own article. That's enough time to have received feedback; I have received none. Therefore, I'm going to start making preparations for implementing this spin out. Viriditas (talk) 23:50, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent decision on your part and wholly support it. I apologize for not coming across your suggestion when I was editing the article a few minutes ago, or I would certainly have thrown my support behind you. Rock on! :) LieutenantZipp (talk) 23:57, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Great. If you have any ideas, do share them. Obviously, we can go into greater detail and depth in a separate article, along with reception and influence. The influence section could get really large of course. Viriditas (talk) 00:02, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think I personally have much to add at this point to such an article besides drafting and copyediting—I'm not a subject-matter expert wrt the memo. But from what I've read about it over the years, it's absolutely worthy of a huge "Influence" section. LieutenantZipp (talk) 00:41, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

What I'm getting at is tracing the direct influence of the Powell memo to the resultant agendas of the foundations and think tanks that executed on his goals. That's the missing part of the equation that is poorly represented in the lit. If you can look into this early part of the history, that would be great. Viriditas (talk) 00:53, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

I can try and give that a go, yeah. Where should I put whatever I do find? (I'm at all experienced with the process of article creation.) LieutenantZipp (talk) 01:47, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

You are free to create a new article by converting the redirect and splitting out the current version summary style and categorizing it under Category:Memoranda. Keep in mind, there is no agreement on whether it should be Powell memorandum or Powell Memorandum, with various camps choosing one or the other. In my experience on the topic, it should be a lowercase title, but people will jump out of the woodwork to say otherwise, so don't concern yourself yet with the proper title, just choose one. Viriditas (talk) 02:01, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this.

The most glaring effect I know of this is the increase in the United States incarceration rate including the plot of File:U.S. incarceration rate since 1925.svg, which shows it relatively constant at 0.1 percent of the US population in US federal and state prisons for the 50 years between 1925 and 1975, then it shoots up by a factor of almost 5 in the last 25 years of the twentieth century and has drifted down some more recently. The section on #Editorial policies of major media cite sourced that attribute this to changes in the the editorial policies of the major broadcasters.

I have not yet found a source that links it directly to the Powell memorandum, but the link should be clear. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:36, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

This is more Nixon via John Ehrlichman than the Powell memo. The irony of course, is that the "tough on crime", law and order response that was partly influenced by the Powell memo, came from the very people accused of white collar crime at an elite level. The war on drugs and subsequent rise in incarceration was one way to divide and conquer any attempt to challenge the establishment and to keep people from questioning the rampant corruption and anti-democratic inclination of top-down governance. This also led directly to the militarization of the police and the surveillance state. As Philip Slater deftly observed in 2006, "right-wing Republicans don't believe in democracy and never have". It's taken many decades for people to understand what Slater was talking about. Viriditas (talk) 02:50, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

@Viriditas: Michelle Alexander (2010) The New Jim Crow supports the Nixon / Ehrlichman claim.

However, I doubt if the "War on Drugs" would have had that effect if major corporations had not bought the major commercial broadcasters, fired nearly all the investigative journalists, and replaced them with the police blotter. McChesney (2004, p. 81) wrote, "A five-year study of investigative journalism on TV news completed in 2002 determined that investigative journalism has all but disappeared from the nation's commercial airwaves", cited in United States incarceration rate#Editorial policies of major media. That supports the claims by Potter, Kapeller, and Saco also cited in that section regarding the "social construction of crime" as being the primary driver of that increase.

Powell did not recommend that major corporations buy the major broadcasters and fire nearly all the investigative journalism, but that's what happened, and that I think provides a more solid explanation for the five-fold increase in the incarceration rate visible in that plot than the war on drugs.

However, without better quotes than what I have found so far the connection to the Powell memorandum may be too tenuous to mention in this context.

Thanks for considering this contrary perspective ;-) DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:30, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, there was a book and several papers that came out a long time ago that purported to show a connection between the rise of conservative media, fear-based rhetoric used on their newscasts, and the focus on crime in the popular American imagination, to the point that Americans came to believe that crime was much more of a problem that it really was, supporting in turn tough on crime policies promoted by the GOP. But I don't recall any link to the Powell memo. But now that you raise the point, I will keep an eye out. Viriditas (talk) 21:52, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. The best I know is McChesney (2004, p. 81), cited above. DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:00, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Right, but does it directly link to the Powell memo? Does it mention the Powell memo? Viriditas (talk) 01:10, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

No. And the Powell Memo does not say buy the major broadcasters, only monitor their content including air time given to their avowed enemies like Ralph Nader and the American Civil Liberties Union. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:11, 22 February 2026 (UTC)