![]() Not only were his colleagues abreast of their decisions, Hughes affirmed, but also adding additional justices would only lengthen discussions and delay the resolution of cases.īy January 1937, Roosevelt had ample reasons to be angry at the chief justice and his eight colleagues, who, since 1934, had often held key New Deal legislation such as the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act to be unconstitutional. And in early March, Chief Justice Hughes, with the approval of both liberal Justice Louis Brandeis and conservative Justice Willis Van Devanter, sent a letter to the latter body demolishing the president’s arguments about the slow pace of the Court’s decision-making. Soon denounced as Roosevelt’s “Court-packing plan,” the proposal drew opposition not only from Republicans but also from key Democratic leaders, including the chairs of both House and Senate judiciary committees. ![]() “We cannot yield our constitutional destiny to the personal judgment of a few men who, fearful of the future, would deny us the necessary means of dealing with the present,” he said.īut the damage had been done. ![]() Quickly realizing his gaffe, Roosevelt adopted a new argument for the proposed legislation in a radio fireside chat, in which he framed the issue as a struggle between popular government and a nonelected judicial oligarchy bent on preventing needed social and economic reforms to cure the nation’s festering economic problems. ![]() Since the 1920s, moreover, Congress had given the justices complete discretion to manage their docket. The Court’s oldest member, Justice Louis Brandeis, was 80 years old and had often voted to support New Deal legislation so, too, had the chief justice, then age 75 years. His critics thought Roosevelt was acting deceptively by not admitting his political motivation of having the Court endorse the constitutionality of New Deal programs. The president’s initial rationale displayed ignorance of the Court’s procedures and offered ammunition to his soon-swelling crowd of critics. Some justices, he concluded, “are often unable to perceive their own infirmities.” This political cartoon from January 1937, titled Oliver Twist, depicts Roosevelt asking Congress for more power for his New Deal programs. As proof, he noted they had refused in the recent term to hear 90 percent of the petitions presented to them for review. To the Congressional leaders who mostly sat and listened in stunned silence, Roosevelt explained that the legislation had become necessary because the aging justices on Charles Evans Hughes’s court could not keep up with their daunting caseload. If approved by Congress, the legislation would have given the president up to six new appointments to the Supreme Court. Officially titled the Judicial Procedures Reform Act, the plan would allow the president to nominate an additional judge to the Court for every sitting judge who had served at least 10 years, had reached the age of 70 years, and did not step down within six months. On February 5, while meeting with leaders of Congress and his cabinet at the White House, Roosevelt unveiled his proposal to revamp the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Even if you do not agree, suspend judgment and I will tell you the story.” Shock, indeed. On January 15, 1937, five days before his second inauguration, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote to Harvard law professor Felix Frankfurter: “Very confidentially, I may give you an awful shock in about two weeks. Use this narrative along with the New Deal Critics Narrative and the Huey Long and the American Liberty League, 1934 Primary Source to highlight opposition the New Deal faced.
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