- While the First Amendment was intended to protect individual freedom of religion, speech and assembly, as well as a free press, corporations have begun to displace individuals as its direct beneficiaries. This “shift from individual to business First Amendment cases is recent but accelerating.”
- Business involvement in First Amendment cases more than doubled during the tenure of Lewis Powell Jr. on the Supreme Court. Before, no more than 25% of such cases involved corporations; toward the end, more than 40% did. (In 1971, prior to being named to the Court, he authored what is now known as the “Powell Memorandum” urging corporations to become more involved in politics and the law.)
- The First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978), which challenged a Massachusetts law prohibiting corporate donations on ballot initiatives unless its interests were directly involved, was the first that “affirmed in the strongest terms a corporate ‘right’ to free expression.” This was “founded in the simple logic that corporations were (legally) people, and people have rights under the First Amendment.”