Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
A recent report published by the Center for Media and Democracy has alleged that there is a network of think tanks across this country that has been “quietly pushing the agenda of right-wing groups with funding from Koch brothers-affiliated organizations.” The umbrella organization that these sixty-four think tanks are collaborating with is called the State Policy Network (SPN)—“a nonprofit that nurtures conservative think tanks in all fifty states.”
From SPN’s website:
Founded in 1992 by Tom Roe at the urging of Ronald Reagan, State Policy Network is the only group in the country dedicated solely to improving the practical effectiveness of independent, non-profit, market-oriented, state-focused think tanks. SPN’s programs enable these organizations to better educate local citizens, policy makers and opinion leaders about market-oriented alternatives to state and local policy challenges.
According to the Center for Media and Democracy’s report, SPN and its “member think tanks” promote an “extreme right-wing agenda” that is much the same as that of “David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, Charles Koch’s Cato Institute, and Koch’s Citizens for a Sound Economy spin-off FreedomWorks–all of which happen to be associate members of ALEC.”
Lisa Graves, the director of the Center for Media and Democracy, claimed that the individual think tanks that are members of the SPN network “present themselves as ‘neutral, non-partisan groups, but are in fact part of a national network to project the voices and interests of some of the most powerful corporations and families in the country.’” During a conference call with reporters, Graves said that “these groups are extraordinarily influential.”
Media Matters reported that SPN is an active member of ALEC—and added that thirty-four of its members “are directly linked back to ALEC.” It was also reported that all of the think tanks in SPN’s network “push parts of ALEC’s agenda in their respective states.” SPN has also been a sponsor of ALEC’s annual meeting for the last three years.
From Media Matters:
According to the Center for Media and Democracy, SPN groups have drafted model legislation attacking worker and environmental protections in several states, including Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington. The Center notes that the Arizona-based SPN affiliate, The Goldwater Institute, has three model bills on its website attempting to attack the Affordable Care Act at the state level, while another would treat any gun control legislation at the federal level as the “equivalent of a federal crime.” John Loredo, former Minority Leader of the Arizona House of Representatives, described the Goldwater Institute as “corporate mercenaries who push their agenda at every level of government.”
The Guardian recently reported that Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon, had done research on SPN and its affiliated groups. He found that they “were actively targeting the rights of often non-unionised employees.” Lafer said that his research “had uncovered attempts to expand the use of child labour, cut the minimum wage, reduce unemployment benefit, make it harder to sue employers for sex or race discrimination, or even to police wage theft where companies refused to pay workers over-time or any wages at all.”
At a gathering of GOP donors in San Francisco just days after President Obama had been re-elected, Grover Norquist told those in attendance that with the help of SPN Republican governors might be able to “turn their states into Texas or Hong Kong.” He added, “It’s a wonderful opportunity.”
In his article for The Nation titled The Right Leans In: Media-savvy conservative think tanks take aim and fire at progressive power bases in the states, Lee Fang wrote the following:.
These media-savvy organizations—which frequently employ former journalists to churn out position papers, news articles, investigations and social media content with a hard-right slant—bolster the pro-corporate lobbying efforts of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Like ALEC, State Policy Network groups provide an ideological veil for big businesses seeking to advance radical deregulatory policy goals.
Lisa Graves was quoted by Politico as saying, “These aren’t just little think tanks that are doing nonpartisan research based on what’s happening in the state and really reflective of the culture of those states. These are a lot of groups that put together pretty cooked books on the issues they are peddling and have been criticized in state after state for how shoddy their research has been.”
Major Funders of SPN
The SPN network is said to have an annual “war chest” of more than $80 million, which comes from some well-known donors—including the Koch brothers, Philip Morris, Kraft Foods, GlaxoSmithKline, Facebook, Microsoft, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. Other major donors: Roe Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Castle Rock Foundation, Scaife Foundations, Walton Family Foundation, Art Pope, and Searle Freedom Trust.
The Center for Media and Democracy notes that “the largest known funder behind SPN and its member think tanks are two closely related funds — DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.” Mother Jones published an article about Donors Trust last February. Andy Kroll, the author of the article, called Donors Trust “the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement.”
Kroll:
Founded in 1999, Donors Trust (and an affiliated group, Donors Capital Fund) has raised north of $500 million and doled out $400 million to more than 1,000 conservative and libertarian groups, according to Whitney Ball, the group’s CEO. Donors Trust allows wealthy contributors who want to donate millions to the most important causes on the right to do so anonymously, essentially scrubbing the identity of those underwriting conservative and libertarian organizations. Wisconsin’s 2011 assault on collective bargaining rights? Donors Trust helped fund that. ALEC, the conservative bill mill? Donors Trust supports it. The climate deniers at the Heartland Institute? They get Donors Trust money, too.
Donors Trust is not the source of the money it hands out. Some 200 right-of-center funders who’ve given at least $10,000 fill the group’s coffers. Charities bankrolled by Charles and David Koch, the DeVoses, and the Bradleys, among other conservative benefactors, have given to Donors Trust. And other recipients of Donors Trust money include the Heritage Foundation, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the NRA’s Freedom Action Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Federalist Society, and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, chaired (PDF) by none other than David Koch.
Media Mouthpiece for the Right-Wing Agenda
In February the Center for Public Integrity published an article by Paul Abowd titled Donors use charity to push free-market policies in states: Nonprofit group lets donors fly ‘totally under the radar’. Abowd reported that, in 2009, “a network of online media outlets began popping up in state capitals across the nation, each covering the news from a clearly conservative point of view. What wasn’t so clear was how they were funded.”
Michael Moroney, a spokesman for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity—the think tank that created the outlets, said, “The source is 100 percent anonymous.” According to IRS records, 95% of the Franklin Center’s 2011 revenue came from Donors Trust.
In 2011, Sara Jerving (PR Watch) wrote about the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity’s “rushing to fill the gap” in 2009 as newsrooms across the country were cutting staff “due in part to slipping ad revenue and corporate media conglomeration.” At the time her article was published, the aforementioned network had “43 state news websites, with writers in over 40 states.” Jerving said the network’s reporters had “been given state house press credentials” and that its news articles were “starting to appear in mainstream print newspapers in each state.” Jerving added, “The websites all offer their content free to local press — many of the news bureaus send out their articles to state editors every day. The sites also offer free national stories that media can receive daily by subscribing.”
According to Jerving, the screening process for writers of these media outlets is not like that of other “journalistic outlets.” For example, she said the Wisconsin Reporter asked applicants “ideological questions.” She added that the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based school and resource for journalists, had reported that Wisconsin Reporter applicants were asked to answer questions such as the following: “How do free markets help the poor?” and “Do higher taxes lead to balanced budgets?”
Jerving wrote that the journalistic integrity of Franklin Center’s media sites had been called into question by media watchdog groups. She reported that “Laura McGann, assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, wrote in a 2010 piece in the Washington Monthly, that the Franklin Center sites are engaging in distorted reporting across the country. As often as not, their reporting is thin and missing important context, which occasionally leads to gross distortions.” Jerving said that McGann pointed out several instances where the center’s “Watchdog websites wrote stories that turned out to be misleading or untrue.” McGann also said, “This sort of misleading reporting crops up on Watchdog sites often enough to suggest that, rather than isolated instances of sloppiness, it is part of a broad editorial strategy.”
Despite the kinds of misleading stories published by the Wisconsin Reporter, it has “gained traction in the state.” Jerving said that its stories “have been picked up by a host of local media outlets in the state, such as La Crosse Tribune, Eau Claire’s Leader Telegram, Wausau Daily Herald, Steven’s Point Journal, Chippewa Herald, and Beloit Daily News.”
Excerpt from the Center for Media and Democracy’s report:
SPN works in parallel with the American Legislative Exchange Council, Alec, a forum that brings together largely Republican legislators and corporations to devise model bills that are used to attack workers’ rights in various US states.
Some of SPN members’ destructive agenda items include:
- Education: Defund and privatize public schools through voucher programs, charter school expansion, and giving tax credits to corporations that fund private schools
- Healthcare: Block access to affordable healthcare by working against the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion
- Workers’ Rights: Restrict workers’ collective bargaining rights by pushing anti-worker measures such as so-called “Right to Work” and paycheck deception, and undermine public workers’ negotiated retirement security by switching to risky defined-contribution pension plans
- Energy & the Environment: Oppose renewable, clean energy sources, while promoting fossil fuels and advocating for the repeal of pollution restrictions and environmental protections
- Taxes: Create a tax system that benefits those at the very top and lowers taxes on corporations, while pushing measures such as flat or supposedly “fair” tax programs that cost workers more in marginal dollars, or replacing the income tax with a higher sales tax, all of which disproportionately raise the relative tax rate on middle and working class families
- Government Spending: Cut government spending on essential services and public programs
- Wages & Income Equality: Oppose raising the minimum wage, and in some cases urge the repeal of minimum wage, living wage, and prevailing wage laws
NOTE: Thanks go to Gene Howington for introducing me to the State Policy Network via The Guardian article–and for suggesting that I might be interested in writing a post on the subject.
SOURCES
Meet The Little-Known Network Pushing Ideas For Kochs, ALEC (Huffington Post)
Something Stinks at the State Policy Network (Center for Media and Democracy)
SPN: The $83 Million Right-Wing Empire Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government (Sourcewatch)
State Policy Network (Right Wing Watch)
State Policy Network (SPN) – Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group (Greenpeace)
Corporate Money in Network of Right-Wing State Policy Think Tanks (Nonprofit Quarterly)
Shadowy Right-Wing Group Generates Media Coverage For Conservative Policy From Coast To Coast (Media Matters)
The Right Leans In: Media-savvy conservative think tanks take aim and fire at progressive power bases in the states. (The Nation)
2009 The KOCH Cabal Launched Nationwide non-profit News Bureau: Franklin Center (Daily Kos)
Report: Think tanks tied to Kochs (Politico)
Donors use charity to push free-market policies in states: Nonprofit group lets donors fly ‘totally under the radar’ (Center for Public Integrity)
Franklin Center: Right-Wing Funds State News Source (Truth-Out)
The Koch brothers’ media investment [UPDATED] (Columbia Journalism Review)
Blouise,
The good sisters knew how to handle raff!
raff,
You’re an instigator … 😉
http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/mXg0Ndx.gif
Blouise,
Professor Turley won’t like it, but I think you should copyright “the mother nest of vipers” phrase! 🙂
Help. Comment in limbo. Thanks.
Elaine, did you read about the Boeing machinists vote? It could cause Boeing to move the production of the 777x (the gulf states are buying them by the thousands!) out of Seattle and into……?
OT
For those interested in the interaction between the Pentagon and the White House. This is a terrific article – even though it was published in Politico (but was written by an Obama appointee.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/obama-vs-the-generals-99379.html
Elaine, thanks for your usual good work. And as usual. it has its usual effect on me – massive depression. Their agenda, so clearly laid out, is straightforward and simple. What I don’t get is why is it so clear to me, a very ordinary person with a very ordinary education, that this agenda will ruin my children, my grandchildren, and the country and yet so many others buy the ALEC plan. I am left thinking it must be something hard-wired in our brains and it will be game over when they eventually outnumber us. I won’t be around for “game over” but I wonder – will we (our kids and their kids) be able to reverse the outcome.
OUTMATCHED
Conservatives’ support for state-based think tanks is paying off in regressive legislation. Liberals are scrambling to keep up.
PATRICK CALDWELL
3/7/13
http://prospect.org/article/outmatched
Excerpt:
In early December, the Michigan Legislature met for a lame-duck session that should have been uncontroversial—just a bit of housework before the next body convened in 2013. Instead, the GOP majority used the period to enact a dream list of conservative priorities: abortion-rights restrictions, a phaseout of the personal–property tax, reductions to welfare. Its crowning achievement was the passage of a right-to-work bill prohibiting unions from collecting mandatory dues.
It seemed unfathomable that Michigan, once the cradle of a thriving and unionized American workforce, could have turned overnight into a right-to-work state. But then many traditions have been upended since the 2010 midterm elections in which Republicans took control of both legislative chambers in 26 states. (Though a few states flipped sides in the November election, that number still holds.) Longtime progressive and purple states, newly under Republican control, have turned into Texas-lite. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker and the Republican legislature stripped public employees of collective-bargaining rights. In Maine, Governor Paul LePage and a Republican-held legislature cut health benefits for the poor. Early this year, Republicans in North Carolina (a state under Republican control for the first time in more than a century) approved cutting unemployment benefits by a third.
Several groups can be thanked for the rightward swing in state policy. Progressives have lately focused much of their attention on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-funded alliance that crafts model policy and even bills for state legislators (it had done so in secret for almost three decades until Freedom of Information Act requests revealed the extent of its work in 2011). But in Michigan’s case and others, key policy ideas had been incubating for years—sometimes decades—across a more loosely knit but effective web of conservative think tanks working at the state level.
Sitting atop this coalition is the State Policy Network (SPN), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. “We’re a service organization dedicated to encouraging state-focused think tanks,” Meredith Turney, the group’s director of strategic communications, said by e-mail, “so we spend most of our time in the states, not D.C.” Thomas Roe Jr.—a member of Ronald Reagan’s “kitchen cabinet” of informal advisers, longtime board member for the Heritage Foundation, and founder of his own think tank, the South Carolina Policy Council—started the organization in 1992.
Hubert,
Sorry, I have to chuckle. We have corporate-controlled MSM in this country. We have corporate-driven school reform too.
Sorry, I have to chuckle at this article. In a overwhelmingly dominated left-wing media that’s constantly pushing agendas in every chance it gets, and even pushing agendas on our children in public schools, it’s amusing to read about ==shudder== a “right wing agenda”. (gasp!)
Elaine,
I was bone tired yesterday by the time you posted this incredible column and decided to wait till today to take it all in.
(You know, my dear, you have combined your years of experience as a teacher, librarian, poet, and now, in your retirement, become one hell of an investigative reporter. Rock ‘n Roll!)
I do believe you have found the mother nest of vipers where all the coordination and web-weaving takes place. You have managed to pull all the reports together … all those little dots of light … creating one, huge spotlight that illuminates how a distinct minority actively attempts to negate the rights of the majority.
(I, of course, paid particular attention to ” … while another would treat any gun control legislation at the federal level as the “equivalent of a federal crime.” as the group I work with has long known that all the mischief starts at the state level and works its way up. I have emailed your column to all of them.)
Well done, Elaine. Honest to God, well done.
Well…. If you want rules in football….. You might start with the owners …. BUT THEN AGAIN…. it’s too simple…..
The Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions
Inspired by Ronald Reagan and funded by the right’s richest donors, a web of free-market think tanks has fueled the nationwide attack on workers’ rights.
—By Andy Kroll | Sun Apr. 24, 2011
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/state-policy-network-union-bargaining
Excerpt:
From New Hampshire to Alaska, Republican lawmakers are waging war on organized labor. They’re pushing bills to curb, if not eliminate, collective bargaining for public workers; make it harder for unions to collect member dues; and, in some states, allow workers to opt out of joining unions entirely but still enjoy union-won benefits. All told, it’s one of the largest assaults on American unions in recent history.
Behind the onslaught is a well-funded network of conservative think tanks that you’ve probably never heard of. Conceived by the same conservative ideologues who helped found the Heritage Foundation, the State Policy Network (SPN) is a little-known umbrella group with deep ties to the national conservative movement. Its mission is simple: to back a constellation of state-level think tanks loosely modeled after Heritage that promote free-market principles and rail against unions, regulation, and tax increases. By blasting out policy recommendations and shaping lawmakers’ positions through briefings and private meetings, these think tanks cultivate cozy relationships with GOP politicians. And there’s a long tradition of revolving door relationships between SPN staffers and state governments. While they bill themselves as independent think tanks, SPN’s members frequently gather to swap ideas. “We’re all comrades in arms,” the network’s board chairman told the National Review in 2007.
Occasionally, SPN think tanks boast of their clout. Such was the case when the Tennessee Center for Policy Research bragged on its website recently that it “leads the charge against teachers’ union” and “laid the groundwork” for the bills now in the Tennessee legislature to restrict, and possibly eradicate, bargaining for public school teachers. More often, though, the fingerprints of SPN’s members are less apparent…
In Iowa, Republican Gov. Terry Branstad cited research (flawed, it turned out) by SPN’s Public Interest Institute in his January 2011 budget address to justify curbing the state’s collective bargaining law for public workers. (Last month, the GOP-controlled Iowa House passed a bill limiting bargaining rights, but the measure died in the Democratic-controlled Senate.)
In Michigan, as Mother Jones previously reported, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, an SPN member, published a list of four policy recommendations that would give unelected “emergency managers” more power to go into municipalities and wipe out union contracts and fire local elected officials, all in the name of repairing broken budgets. All four ended up in Governor Rick Snyder’s “financial martial law,” as one GOP lawmaker described it. The bill was signed into law in March.
The Nevada Policy Research Institute (NPRI) has for more than a decade bashed the Silver State’s efforts to pass collective bargaining laws and accused unions of trying to “monopolize the public sector.” In March, Nevada Republicans, citing NPRI data, introduced a bill of their own to weaken bargaining rights. There, as in other states considering similar measures, GOP lawmakers called on an SPN staffer to testify on the bill, which he did favorably.
In California, where a Republican lawmaker introduced a bill in February to repeal collective bargaining on retirement benefits for public workers, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) has churned out a steady stream of reports and op-eds claiming that teachers unions use collective bargaining to “neuter school board authority, protect bad teachers, restrict principals, emphasize seniority over performance, and limit teacher evaluation and accountability.” That is, bargaining is to blame for just about everything that’s gone wrong. A 2003 PRI paper recommended that policymakers “streamline or repeal” collective bargaining for teachers.
When SPN think tanks are not providing conservative lawmakers with ammo, they’re providing them with cover as they take on organized labor. In Wisconsin, as Republican Gov. Scott Walker weathered criticism and sinking approval ratings for his anti-union “repair” bill, the MacIver Institute and Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, both SPN members, rushed to his defense. MacIver lauded Walker’s controversial bill as a “step in taming the behemoth” of big government caused by public-sector unions. Meanwhile, a staffer for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (and former Wisconsin legislative aide) defended Walker’s bill in an error-riddled New York Times op-ed as “fiscally modest, but politically bold.” As tens of thousands poured into the streets of Madison to oppose Walker’s bill, MacIver even cut a video that dismissed the pro-labor protesters as radicalized communists and socialists.
Doggone it, word press seems to have put me on their “mess with him list”
I am going have to start to copy and paste before I post. WP didn’t use to be this delicate.
Elaine, great and scary stuff. The MSM has been reduced to a profit generating branch of MEGA Corp entertainment.
” The umbrella organization that these sixty-four think tanks are collaborating with is called the State Policy Network (SPN)—“a nonprofit that nurtures conservative think tanks in all fifty states.”
Reducing labor costs and outsourcing production of product works well for these Goliaths of Snews.
When a story breaks, the toadys of network nimbobs, simply call the “Manipulated Snews Mall”
The stores shelves of the mall are stocked with canned gossip and sleaze, instant controverseroni, microwavable dissension, and bottled BS blather. Chuck Todd and David Gregory have in-house credit, as a matter of “fact” they are both platinum card holders.
On the loading dock (unloading dock) in the back of the MSM, ones sees the politicians, corporations, lobbyists, and snake oilers, eagerly pushing their product into the welcoming caverns of Faux reality.
The owners of this mall are genius. The suppliers pay them to sell their product, the buyers pay them to use their product, the owners not only earn double profit, but the use of the product itself multiplies their wealth. …. Brilliant and it is all done in plain sight.
“State Policy Network”: The Right-Wing Think Tanks Spinning Disinformation and Pushing ALEC’s Agenda
4/4/13
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/04/1199252/–State-Policy-Network-The-Right-Wing-Think-Tanks-Spinning-Disinformation-and-Pushing-the-ALEC-Agen
Excerpt:
Trying to Change the Law, but Reporting Little or No Lobbying. Like ALEC, SPN and its affiliates seek to change state laws, but report little or no lobbying. That means that corporations and individuals (like Koch Industries and others) that fund their operations can get a tax write-off for funding SPN efforts. See the SourceWatch article on the SPN Agenda for more.
SPN Funders Help Some Interests Get Multiple Votes on ALEC Bills. The relationship between SPN affiliates and ALEC is strong and is funded by some of the same donors. That means that some corporate interests like the Kochs get, in effect, multiple votes to change the law on ALEC task forces, where corporate lobbyists and special interest groups like SPN operations vote as equals with elected officials behind closed doors. A particular ALEC task force may have multiple Koch-funded operations — including a lobbyist from Koch Companies Public Sector, a special interest representative from an SPN operation like the Goldwater Institute, and reps from national Koch-controlled or fueled groups like David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and the Charles Koch-founded Cato Institute, along with the Heritage Foundation, a long-time ally of the Koch agenda. Through ALEC, SPN helps write templates to change state laws; then ALEC members vote in secret for those bills; and then SPN supports the introduction or adoption of those bills as law, sometimes with help from David Koch’s AFP echo chamber in a state.
SPN Funders Have Included Some of the Richest and Most Ideological Families in the Country. Fueling SPN-related efforts is a bevy of right-wing billionaires and foundations beyond the Koch brothers and including the Bradley Foundation, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund (large donor-directed funds), the Olin Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation (the Amway fortune), the Coors-related Castle Rock Foundation and the Adolph Coors Foundation, the McCamish Foundation, the JM Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. SPN-related activities are also funded by the Roe Foundation, the charitable arm that is part of the legacy of Thomas Roe, the man who helped launch SPN over two decades ago, after telling one of his allies, “I’m going to capture the states,” just like Ronald Reagan was going to capture the U.S.S.R.
SPN’s Legislative Agenda Is Frequently Buttressed by Its Forays as “Press” and the Echoes of Its Allies in the Growing Right-Wing State “Press” Corps. As CMD was one of the first to document, SPN groups like the Goldwater Institute are hiring people to act as reporters, and the legislative agenda of SPN is increasingly echoed by the growing right-wing infrastructure of groups that pose as press. Some even get their stories or “reports” picked up as news and delivered to state newspapers as a “wire” service like the Associated Press, as with the Franklin Center’s Watchdog.org groups and the Ryun brothers-allied “American Majority” and “Media Trackers” operations.
The Lewis Powell Memo – Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy
Blogpost by Charlie Cray
August 23, 2011
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/the-lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-to-/blog/36466/
Excerpt:
Forty years ago today, on August 23, 1971, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., an attorney from Richmond, Virginia, drafted a confidential memorandum for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that describes a strategy for the corporate takeover of the dominant public institutions of American society.
Powell and his friend Eugene Sydnor, then-chairman of the Chamber’s education committee, believed the Chamber had to transform itself from a passive business group into a powerful political force capable of taking on what Powell described as a major ongoing “attack on the American free enterprise system.”
An astute observer of the business community and broader social trends, Powell was a former president of the American Bar Association and a board member of tobacco giant Philip Morris and other companies. In his memo, he detailed a series of possible “avenues of action” that the Chamber and the broader business community should take in response to fierce criticism in the media, campus-based protests, and new consumer and environmental laws.
Environmental awareness and pressure on corporate polluters had reached a new peak in the months before the Powell memo was written. In January 1970, President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act, which formally recognized the environment’s importance by establishing the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Massive Earth Day events took place all over the country just a few months later and by early July, Nixon signed an executive order that created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Tough new amendments to the Clean Air Act followed in December 1970 and by April 1971, EPA announced the first air pollution standards. Lead paint was soon regulated for the first time, and the awareness of the impacts of pesticides and other pollutants– made famous by Rachel Carson in her 1962 book, Silent Spring – was recognized when DDT was finally banned for agricultural use in 1972.
The overall tone of Powell’s memo reflected a widespread sense of crisis among elites in the business and political communities. “No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack,” he suggested, adding that the attacks were not coming just from a few “extremists of the left,” but also – and most alarmingly — from “perfectly respectable elements of society,” including leading intellectuals, the media, and politicians.
To meet the challenge, business leaders would have to first recognize the severity of the crisis, and begin marshalling their resources to influence prominent institutions of public opinion and political power — especially the universities, the media and the courts. The memo emphasized the importance of education, values, and movement-building. Corporations had to reshape the political debate, organize speakers’ bureaus and keep television programs under “constant surveillance.” Most importantly, business needed to recognize that political power must be “assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination – without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.”
Powell emphasized the importance of strengthening institutions like the U.S. Chamber — which represented the interests of the broader business community, and therefore key to creating a united front. While individual corporations could represent their interests more aggressively, the responsibility of conducting an enduring campaign would necessarily fall upon the Chamber and allied foundations. Since business executives had “little stomach for hard-nosed contest with their critics” and “little skill in effective intellectual and philosophical debate,” it was important to create new think tanks, legal foundations, front groups and other organizations. The ability to align such groups into a united front would only come about through “careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and united organizations.”
Before he was appointed by Richard Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court Powell circulated his call for a business crusade not only to the Chamber, but also to executives at corporations including General Motors. The memo did not become available to the public until after Powell’s confirmation to the Court, when it was leaked to Jack Anderson, a syndicated columnist and investigative reporter, who cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity.
Anderson’s report spread business leaders’ interest in the memo even further. Soon thereafter, the Chamber’s board of directors formed a task force of 40 business executives (from U.S. Steel, GE, ABC, GM, CBS, 3M, Phillips Petroleum, Amway and numerous other companies) to review Powell’s memo and draft a list of specific proposals to “improve understanding of business and the private enterprise system,” which the board adopted on November 8, 1973.
Historian Kim Phillips-Fein describes how “many who read the memo cited it afterward as inspiration for their political choices.” In fact, Powell’s Memo is widely credited for having helped catalyze a new business activist movement, with numerous conservative family and corporate foundations (e.g. Coors, Olin, Bradley, Scaife, Koch and others) thereafter creating and sustaining powerful new voices to help push the corporate agenda, including the Business Roundtable (1972), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC – 1973), Heritage Foundation (1973), the Cato Institute (1977), the Manhattan Institute (1978), Citizens for a Sound Economy (1984 – now Americans for Prosperity), Accuracy in Academe (1985), and others.
Because it signaled the beginning of a major shift in American business culture, political power and law, the Powell memo essentially marks the beginning of the business community’s multi-decade collective takeover of the most important institutions of public opinion and democratic decision-making. At the very least, it is the first place where this broad agenda was compiled in one document.
“think tanks” (what warmongers do when they wake up) …
These freedom subverting groups think tanks when they wake up and put on their war on democracy uniforms each day.
Thanks for exposing them Elaine M.
Excellent posting, Elaine, the importance of airing this issue cannot be overstated. The incredible amount of wealth arrayed against democracy around the world is astounding. There is no time to waste if it’s going to be combated.
Lost a posting.