mind but you know the same day nixon nominated lewis powell he had to open and he nominated william rehnquist the conservative and these two actually turned out to be very different justices the conservative who we think of as the conservative william rehnquist actually wrote dissent after dissent against lewis powell corporate rights decisions and lewis powell who we think of as this moderate mild mannered judge turned out to be the revolutionary who created a whole new theory of corporate speech which had never existed in america up to that time. the son in law he was it was brilliant you know he just he pointed back to santa clara that's right he said you know this court without benefit of discussion or debate you know just created this but. now i'm. this is your turn. one of your chapters one of the chapters in your book ask the question did corporate power destroy the working american economy what were the what are the things that came out of the paul memo that we can explicitly track back to it and it's been nearly forty years now what impact. on our economy in our culture can we. conne

. >> jon: william rehnquist famously put stripes on his robe. were you ever tempted to sort of-- your look. >> i don't know what-- . >> stephen: like this? >> i don't think so. >> stephen: let's shift gears. >> sure. >> stephen: you wrote the dissenting opinion in citizens united, correct. >> yes. >> stephen: what did it is a, tell me what you wrote. >> well, i suppose one of the briefest things one could say is it changed the laws of management in made corporations much more leeway in spending money in electoral campaigns then they had in the past. >> stephen: we all know it is a long established law that corporations are people, true. >> for some purposes, corporations are persons. >> stephen: should a person be denied their lights. >> no. >> stephen: okay, so if a person should not be denied their rights and a corporation is a person, shouldn't corporations have every constitutional right that you have. >> no, not necessarily. >> stephen: checkmate, when i checkmate someone i like to say it. >> okay. and i would say you overlooked the fact th

william rehnquist was elevated to the chief's job and nobody was handling scalia. scalia set a standard for future nominations. i said you have to give him that. otherwise, you don't have a job. and i'm still not sure he ever said that he would agree that that was settled law. but that sort of set the standard. after he was confirmed 9-0 or something pretty close to that, then the democrats sort of started digging in in some of the other nominations that were to follow him. and sort of like we're never, ever going to let anybody answer as few questions as scalia did ever ever again in the history of the congress of the united states. and then we had in between, before i got back to the white house, the bork fiasco. in short, bob bork didn't realize he really didn't need to explain anything to the senate of the united states of the judiciary committee. and he just talked himself into oblivion. now we have the situation created by the nomination of david souter. frankly, after spending as much time as i spent with david during the confirmation process and visiting me

happened at a great time, working for president reagan at the time but it happened at a time when william rehnquist had been elevated to chief and nobody was handling scalia. and scalia set a standard for future supreme court -- scalia didn't even want to admit that marbury versus madison was set in law that allowed him to have a job in the first place. i said you got to give him that. because otherwise you don't have a job. and i'm still not sure he ever said that he would agree that was settled law. but that sort of set the standard and then after he was confirmed i think by 9-0 the democrats started digging in in some of the other nominations that were to follow him and sort of like we're never ever going to let anybody answer as few questions as scalia did ever again in the history of the congress of the united states. and then we had in between before i got back to the white house the bourque fee as co. he did not realize he didn't need to explain anything to the senate of the united states, the judiciary committee and he talked himself into oblivion. and i think it was poor judgment on his pa

william rehnquist said that's just nonsense. he idea that if you gave this kind of power to a corporations which would give them the power to unleash, unlimited amounts of money in our political spere, it would undermine the democracy supposed to be run by the people. >> one of the interesting things you bring up in the book, jack, when you are talking about these reforms, when you talk about this idea that if -- if a company -- has a contract, can't give money, it is all given by the employees. that's a convenient fiction. wilmer hale, if they raise money for someone, individual attorneys. my understanding of current jurisprudence, up can't give money if you have a government contract requires a constitutional amendment. that's my understanding. i'm not a lawyer. there is a case in -- north carolina that has to do with lobbyists giving money. they have lobbyists giving money in the north carolina legislature. survivored in the fourth circuit basically the dashesens of -- many parts. one of them is if you -- mick a choice where y