Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937
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| The [Neutral point of view>neutrality] of this article is [NPOV disputedisputed]. Please see the discussion on the [United States President Franklin Roosevelt for power to appoint an extra Supreme Court Justice for every sitting Justice over the age of 70 and six months. This was proposed in response to the Supreme Court overturning several of his New Deal measures that proponents claim were designed to help the United States recover from the Great Depression.
BackgroundFranklin Roosevelt sought a novel way to ensure the constitutionality of his legislative agenda after the Supreme Court of the United States repeatedly invalidated elements of his New Deal by decisions, including the Agricultural Adjustment Act in United States v. Butler et al (1936) and the National Recovery Administration in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935). Although "inclined to wait until a vacancy naturally occurred on the Court," Roosevelt's first term passed without the opportunity to appoint a justice, a happening virtually unprecedented in the history of the American presidency. Increasingly frustrated, Roosevelt sought a constitutional means to change the balance of the Court. By statute, the Supreme Court justices number nine; however, the U.S. Constitution is silent as to how many may serve on the court. Roosevelt and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress faced a Court that had for thirty years been reading into the Constitution a doctrine of "freedom of contract" hostile to social legislation. He came to view the Court's actions as an overextension of judicial authority frustrating the will of the people. Roosevelt decried the activism of conservative justices as "reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there." [link] Emboldened by his landslide victory but faced with the prospect of a hostile court, Roosevelt determined to thwart its ability to block the legislative agenda of his second term. Although the Hughes Court had six justices over the age of 70 and six months, no vacancy loomed in the foreseeable future. Therefore in his first "fireside chat" to the Nation of the second term of his Presidency, he made his case to the American people to support his plan as "the need to meet the unanswered challenge of one-third of a Nation ill-nourished, ill-clad, ill-housed." [link]ContentPresented as a bill to relieve the workload on elderly judges, the bill would have allowed Roosevelt to appoint one judge for each sitting judge over age 70 and six months with at least ten years of experience. This targeted the conservative appointments of the business-oriented Republican Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Because the justices against the New Deal were stronger by only one vote (5-4), two such appointments would reset the equilibrium in favor of Roosevelt.DebateRoosevelt promoted the bill in his 9th Fireside Chat, broadcast over national radio on March 9, 1937. ([Text and audio.]) After submitting his plan to Congress, a heated argument ensued. Some Roosevelt supporters hailed the action as a sign of Roosevelt's strong leadership during tough times. However, others, including Vice President John Garner, strongly opposed the plan as an abuse of presidential authority because they believed the bill would have given the President indirect control of the Supreme Court by adding justices that favored his New Deal programs. The plan was introduced into the U.S. Senate first because Roosevelt expected stronger opposition in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although uncertain, defeat of the bill seemed likely; this was ensured when the plan's leading proponent, Arkansas Senator Joseph Robinson, died during the debates. With its main supporter gone, the plan died in Congress.AnalysisAlthough President Roosevelt lost the battle in Congress, he won the war to change the judicial philosophy of the Supreme Court. Viewing the bill as an active threat by Roosevelt to remove opposing judges from the bench, conservative Justice Owen Josephus Roberts changed his vote in a case before the Court, breaking the deadlock and switching the majority to support of the New Deal ("The switch in time that saved nine") paving way for the passage of the minimum wage in 1937. There is, however, reason to believe that Justice Roberts may not have reacted to the court-packing plan when he cast the crucial vote. The vote on that case was taken before Roosevelt went public with the plan, and Roberts had already cast his vote. However, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes was holding off for the liberal Justice Harlan Stone, who was ill with dysentery, to return to vote. Justice Stone returned two days after Roosevelt's fire-side chat, to vote the way everyone knew he would—for the minimum wage law. In any event, President Roosevelt affected a dramatic and far-reaching shift in the federal Judiciary with implications resonating and relevant to current political debate. Whether achieved as the framers envisioned such wars being won—by the gradual process of changing the federal Judiciary through the appointment process, Roosevelt in his second term nominated and the Senate confirmed five—or through the exericise of raw executive power, President Roosevelt produced a Court sympathetic to the New Deal. During his entire tenure as President, he appointed eight Associate Justices and one Chief Justice, and by 1941 all but one of the Justices was a Roosevelt appointee.External links
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