Dollarocracy (55 page)

83
. Lauren Steussy, “Candidates to Break Pattern of Moderate Mayor in San Diego: Republican Carl DeMaio and Democrat Bob Filner Will Both Lead San Diego Down an Unfamiliar Path,” NBCSanDiego, Tuesday, November 6, 2012, Source:
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Candidates-Break-Pattern-of-Moderate-Mayor-in-San-Diego-177175381.html#ixzz2ErdMQUiB
.

84
. Tracy Seipel and John Woolfolk, “Race for San Jose District 8 Council Seat Awash in Independent Expenditures,”
San Jose Mercury News
, October 26, 2012.

85
. Lawrence Mower, “Incumbents Attract Big Money in County Commission Races,”
Las Vegas Review-Journal
, November 4, 2012.

86
. Jon Kuhl, “History-Making Ballot Measures Pass Throughout Country,” “The Thicket” at
State Legislatures
, November 7, 2012.

87
. Heather Pilatic, “What Matters About California's GE Labeling Fight,” Huffington Post, November 8, 2012.

88
. “Ballot Measures 2012,”
iSolon.org
; “Voters Edge: Ballot Measures 2012,”
MapLight.org
,
http://votersedge.org/
.

89
. Chad Livengood, “Campaign Spending in Michigan Hits $175M: Ballot Issues Draw Most Cash, but Court, House Races Add to Total,”
Detroit News
, November 5, 2012.

90
. Laura Myers, “Adelson Political Bankroll to Grow,”
Las Vegas Review-Journal
, December 10, 2012.

91
. Billy Corriher, “Big Business Taking Over State Supreme Courts,”
americanprogress.org
, August 13, 2012.

92
. Susan Saladoff's 2011 documentary
Hot Coffee
analyzes this trend and its implications,
http://www.hotcoffeethemovie.com/
.

93
. Eduardo Porter, “Unleashing the Campaign Contributions of Corporations,”
New York Times
, August 28, 2012.

94
. Billy Corriher, “Money Undermines Judges' Impartiality,”
usatoday.com
, November 12, 2012.

95
. Brennan Center for Justice and Justice at Stake Campaign, “New Data Shows Judicial Election Ad Spending Breaks Record at $29.7 Million: One Outside Group Spent $429,000 in Louisiana Election,”
www.justiceatstake.org
, December 17, 2012.

96
. Ibid.

97
. Quoted in Peter Hardin, “Toobin: Court Elections the ‘Biggest Outrage' in Political Spending,” gavel
grab.org
, August 14, 2012.

98
. Corriher, “Money Undermines Judges' Impartiality.”

99
. Justice at Stake Campaign, “National Poll: Public Rejects Candidates' Attacks on Courts: Voters Want Judges Accountable to the Constitution, Not Congress,” December 22, 2011,
http://www.justiceatstake.org/newsroom/press_releases.cfm/national_poll_public_rejects_candidates_attacksoncourts?show=news&newsID=12282
.

100
. Erika Eichelberger, “In States with GOP-Dominated Courts, Is Judicial Election Spending Pointless?,”
motherjones.com
, September 20, 2012.

101
. Dave Levinthal, “Sheldon Adelson Gave $10 Million to Pro-Romney SuperPAC,” Politico, December 6, 2012.

102
. Myers, “Adelson Political Bankroll.”

103
. National Nurses United, “Tele-Press Conference to Demand Deceitful New Ad Be Taken Off the Air,” September 27, 2012.
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/news/entry/tele-press-conference-to-demand-that-new-ad-full-of-lies-be-taken-off-the-air
.

104
. Myers, “Adelson Political Bankroll.”

105
. Steven Greenhouse, “In Michigan, a Setback for Unions,”
New York Times
, November 8, 2012.

106
. Myers, “Adelson Political Bankroll.”

107
. John Nichols, “GOP, Koch Brothers Sneak Attack Guts Labor Rights in Michigan,”
The Nation
, December 6, 2012.

108
. Alicia Mundy, “Adelson to Keep Betting on the GOP,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 4, 2012.

109
. Matea Gold, “Outside Groups Changing the Political Game for Good,”
latimes.com
, October 21, 2012.

110
. Janet Stilson, “Issue Ads to Go into Overdrive,”
adweek.com
, November 26, 2012.

111
. Quoted in Michael Kranish, “Despite '12 losses, Super Pacs May Play Role in Midterm Elections,”
boston.com
, November 15, 2012.

112
. Nicholas Confessore, “‘Super PACS' Let Strategists Off the Leash,”
New York Times
, May 21, 2012.

113
. Quoted in Ted Johnson, “Election's End Doesn't Stop Ads,”
variety.com
, December 1, 2012.

114
. Steven Bertoni, “Why Sheldon Adelson's Election Donations Were Millions Well Spent,”
Forbes
, November 8, 2012.

115
. Obviously, this is a thought exercise. The Koch brothers and Adelson do not have their assets in liquid form; if they actually sold off assets to generate billions of dollars in cash for political spending, their net worths would likely decline.

116
. Porter, “Unleashing the Campaign Contributions.”

117
. Seth Hanlon, “Sheldon Adelson's Return on Investment: Billionaire Donor Could Turn $100 Million Invested in the 2012 Presidential Race into a $2 Billion Tax Cut If Romney Is Elected,” Center for American Progress Action Fund, September 11, 2012.

118
. Robert Reich, “Why Billionaires Will Keep Pouring Money into Politics,”
Robert Reich's Blog
, December 12, 2012,
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277–75/14986-why-billionaires-will-keep-pouring-money-into-politics
.

119
. Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti, “Inside Koch World,” Politico, June 15, 2012.

1
. Ben A. Franklin, “Senate Votes Top on Political Gifts; $3,000 Ceiling on Donations to Candidate Put in Bill—Parties Could Get More, Senate Votes Lid on Political Donations, Future Is Uncertain, Disenchantment Clear,”
New York Times
, July 27, 1973.

2
. Dumas Malone,
Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1981), 6:473–481, 488–490, 495–499, 511.

3
.
James L. Buckley, et al. v. Francis R. Valeo, Secretary of the United States Senate, et al.
, 96 S.Ct. 612; 46 L. Ed. 2d 659; 1976 U.S. LEXIS 16; 76–1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) P9189. See also Richard Hasen, “The Untold Drafting History of Buckley v. Valeo,”
Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy
2, no. 2 (2003): 241–253.

4
.
Buckley v. Valeo.

5
. Ibid.

6
. For a superb discussion of Rehnquist and his politics, see John A. Jenkins,
The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2013).

7
. Chandler Davidson, Tanya Dunlap, Gale Kenny, and Benjamin Wise, “Republican Ballot Security Programs: Vote Protection or Minority Vote Suppression—or Both? A Report to the Center for Voting Rights and Protection” (New York: Center for Voting Rights and Protection, September 2004). See also “As Supreme Court Decides Presidency, Chief Justice Rehnquist Is Accused of Past Harassment of Black Voters at the Polls,” Democracy Now, December 12, 2000.

8
. Rick Perlstein,
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
(New York: Scribner, 2008), 605.

9
. In the “Watergate” election of 1974, Democrats gained 4 U.S. Senate seats and 49 U.S. House seats, sweeping in a generation of young reformers who promised a new era of ethics and campaign finance reforms. See Andrew E. Busch, “1974 Midterms Bolster Liberalism in Congress,” Ashbrook Center report (Ashland, OH: Ashland University, August 2006).

10
.
Buckley v. Valeo
, Rehnquist concurring in part, dissenting in part.

11
. Ibid., Burger dissenting.

12
.
First National Bank of Boston, et al. v. Francis X. Bellotti, Attorney General of Massachusetts
, 435 U.S. 765.

13
. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong,
The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979). See also Linda Greenhouse, “Lewis Powell, Crucial Centrist Justice, Dies at 90,”
New
York Times
, August 26, 1998.

14
. Greenhouse, “Lewis Powell.”

15
. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010); Bill Moyers, “The Powell Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations,”
www.billmoyers.com
, September 14, 2012. See also Jeff Clement,
Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It
(San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2012).

16
. Clement,
Corporations Are Not People.

17
. Hacker and Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics.

18
. Quoted in Joan Biskupic and Fred Barbash, “Retired Justice Lewis Powell Dies at 90,”
Washington
Post
, August 26, 1998.

19
. Richard Lowitt,
Fred Harris: His Journey from Liberalism to Populism
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 218.

20
. Charlie Cray, “The Lewis Powell Memo—Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy,” Greenpeace USA, August 23, 2011.

21
. Lewis F. Powell Jr., “Confidential Memorandum: Attack on American Free Enterprise System,”
http://www.greenpeace.org/
.

22
. Ibid.

23
. Ibid.

24
. Ibid. See also Henry A. Giroux, “The Powell Memo and the Teaching Machines of Right-Wing Extremists,” TruthOut, October 1, 2009; and the analysis by the San Francisco–based Commonweal Institute,
http://commonwealinstitute.org
(accessed October 15, 2012).

25
. Powell, “Confidential Memorandum.”

26
. Ibid.

27
. M. Stanton Evans,
The Liberal Establishment: Who Runs America . . . and How
(New York: Devin-Adair, 1965). The Goldwater campaign of 1964 incorporated a broad conservative critique of media, business, and government as the lynchpins of a liberal establishment. But the Goldwater camp's complaint tended to be with “Liberal Republicans” of the Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits camp. Powell would extend the complaint dramatically, creating the image of a media and governing establishment, influenced by activists such as Nader and by an expanding electorate, to advance and celebrate supposedly anticorporate policies.

28
. A conservative who made a similar case to Powell in the 1970s was President Gerald Ford's secretary of the Treasury, William E. Simon. See William E. Simon,
A Time for Truth
(New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1978).

29
. Moyers, “The Powell Memo.”

30
. Michael Pertschuk,
Revolt Against Regulation
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), 16.

31
. “Business Responds to Consumerism,”
Bloomberg Businessweek
, September 6, 1969, 96.

32
. Molly Niesen, “Crisis of Consumerism: Advertising, Activism, and the Battle Over the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, 1969–1980” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012), 70.

33
. John Nichols, “The Wisconsin Model,”
The Progressive
, July 2011.

34
. Clement,
Corporations Are Not People
. See also Tom Hamburger and Melanie Mason, “Chamber of Commerce Getting Early Start with Attack Ads,”
Los Angeles Times
, November 16, 2011.

35
. Lisa Graves, “A CMD Special Report on ALEC's Funding and Spending,” Center for Media and Democracy's PRWatch, July 13, 2011,
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10887/cmd-special-report-alecs-funding-and-spending
.

36
. See Steven M. Teles,
The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).

37
. Media Research Center, “About the Media Research Center: Bringing Political Balance to the Media,”
http://archive.mrc.org/about/aboutwelcome.asp
. People for the American Way's “Right-Wing Watch” project was an invaluable resource. It can be accessed at
http://www.rightwingwatch.org
.

38
. Hacker and Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics
, chap. 5.

39
. David Vogel,
Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America
(Frederick, MD: Beard Books, 1989), 197.

40
. Hacker and Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics.