FDR ANNOUNCES 'COURT-PACKING' PLAN
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On February 5, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced a plan to increase the number of justices on the United States Supreme Court from 9 to as many as 15.
The plan came in response to High Court decisions which declared New Deal programs unconstitutional.
FDR spoke of this plan in his Fireside Chat of March 9, 1937. He said...
"Can it be said that full justice is achieved when a court decline(s) to hear 87% of the cases presented...?"
The proposed bill* remained stuck in committee for 165 days. Popular support for the bill reached a paltry 39%. Bar associations around the nation opposed it.
Finally, the Senate Judiciary Committee revised the legislation omitting the additional justices. The new bill was passed and signed into law by FDR on August 26, 1937.
While the 'court-packing' affair was a humiliating political defeat for FDR, he got the last laugh. By serving three full terms, FDR appointed 8 of the 9 justices on the High Court.
Chief Justice William Rhenquist says it was the United States Senate, however, that "saved the independence of the judiciary."
*The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill granted the POTUS the power to appoint one justice for every member of the SC over the age of 70.5 up to a maximum of six. New Deal critic Edward Rumely dubbed it the 'court-packing' plan.
SOURCE
"When Franklin Roosevelt Clashed With the Supreme Court--and Lost," by William E. Leuchtenburg, May 2005, Smithsonian Magazine, www.smithsonianmag.com/
