On February 5, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt shocked America by introducing a plan to expand the Supreme Court, to gain favorable votes. FDR’s war on the court was short-lived, and it was defeated by a crafty Chief Justice and Roosevelt’s party members.
President Roosevelt had enacted wide-ranging legislation along with congressional Democrats as part of his New Deal program, starting in 1933.
By 1937, Roosevelt had won a second term in office, but the makeup of a conservative-leaning Supreme Court hadn’t changed since he took office four years earlier. There were four Justices –nicknamed the “Four Horsemen”: ,” Justices George Sutherland, Pierce Butler, James McReynolds, and Willis Van Devanter—who were conservative enough that their votes against most New Deal plans were expected. A fifth justice with conservative leanings was the Chief Justice, Charles Evans Hughes, who also narrowly lost the 1916 presidential race to the Democratic incumbent, President Woodrow Wilson.
FDR beat the SCOTUS which is why we have the unconditional Social Security program.
FTA
On February 5, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt shocked America by introducing a plan to expand the Supreme Court, to gain favorable votes. FDR’s war on the court was short-lived, and it was defeated by a crafty Chief Justice and Roosevelt’s party members.
President Roosevelt had enacted wide-ranging legislation along with congressional Democrats as part of his New Deal program, starting in 1933.
By 1937, Roosevelt had won a second term in office, but the makeup of a conservative-leaning Supreme Court hadn’t changed since he took office four years earlier. There were four Justices –nicknamed the “Four Horsemen”: ,” Justices George Sutherland, Pierce Butler, James McReynolds, and Willis Van Devanter—who were conservative enough that their votes against most New Deal plans were expected. A fifth justice with conservative leanings was the Chief Justice, Charles Evans Hughes, who also narrowly lost the 1916 presidential race to the Democratic incumbent, President Woodrow Wilson.