Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

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Lewis F. Powell, Jr. : biography

September 19, 1907 – August 25, 1998

Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. (September 19, 1907 – August 25, 1998) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He developed a reputation as a judicial moderate, and was known as a master of compromise and consensus-building. He was known for drafting the Powell Memorandum, a confidential memorandum for the US Chamber of Commerce that described a road map to defend and further their concept of free-enterprise capitalism against real and/or perceived socialist, communist, and fascist cultural trends.

Powell Memorandum

Based in part on his experiences as a corporate lawyer and as a representative for the tobacco industry with the Virginia legislature, he wrote the Powell Memorandum to a friend at the US Chamber of Commerce. The memo called for corporate America to become more aggressive in molding politics and law in the US and may have sparked the formation of several influential right-wing think tanks as well as inspiring the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to become far more politically active.

In August 1971, prior to accepting President Nixon’s request to become Associate Justice of Supreme Court, Lewis Powell sent the "Confidential Memorandum" with the title, "Attack on the American Free Enterprise System." Powell argued, "The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism came from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians." In the memorandum, Powell advocated "constant surveillance" of textbook and television content, as well as a purge of left-wing elements.

This memo foreshadowed a number of Powell’s most notable court opinions, especially First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, which shifted the direction of First Amendment law by declaring that corporate financial influence of elections through independent expenditures should be protected with the same vigor as individual political speech. Much of the future Court opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission relied on the same arguments raised in Bellotti.

Supreme Court tenure

In 1969, President Nixon asked him to join the Supreme Court, but Powell turned him down. In 1971, Nixon asked him again. Powell was unsure, but Nixon and his Attorney General, John N. Mitchell, persuaded him that joining the Court was his duty to the nation. One of the primary concerns that Powell had was the effect leaving his law firm and joining the high court would have on his personal financial status, as he enjoyed a very lucrative private practice at his law firm. Another of Powell’s major concerns was that, as a corporate attorney, he would be unfamiliar with many of the issues that would come before the Supreme Court, which at that time, as today, heard very few corporate law cases. Powell feared this would place him at a disadvantage and make it unlikely that he would be able to influence his colleagues.

He and William Rehnquist were nominated by President Nixon on the same day to serve on the Court. Powell took over the seat of Hugo Black. On the day of Powell’s swearing-in, when Rehnquist’s wife Nan asked Josephine Powell if this was the most exciting day of her life, Josephine reportedly said, "No, it is the worst day of my life. I am about to cry."

Lewis Powell served from January 7, 1972 until June 26, 1987, when he resigned.

Powell compiled a conservative record on the Court, at the same time cultivating a reputation as a swing vote with a penchant for compromise.A detailed account of Justice Powell’s Supreme Court tenure is in John Calvin Jeffries’s biography Lewis F. Powell. While on the court, he worked hard at familiarizing himself with the issues and arguments in the cases and coming up with distinct and well-reasoned positions on them.

Powell was among the 7-2 majority who legalized abortion in the United States in Roe v. Wade. Powell’s pro-choice stance on abortion stemmed from an incident during his Richmond law firm, when the girlfriend of one of Powell’s office staff bled to death from an illegal coat hanger abortion."Rob Portman, Nancy Reagan and the Empathy Defeicit." The Huffington Post. March 4, 2013. Accessed April 7, 2013.