FDR's Attempt to "Pack" the US Supreme Court in 1937 - Your Thoughts?

The UK used to have Law Lords, but now has a Supreme Court composed of 12 Justices. They are appointed by an independent commission made up the Lord Chancellor (a political appointment) and the heads (judges) of each of the different legal divisions--all supposedly non political. Membership reflects the make-up of the country and there are members from Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland as well as England. Had the US had such a system, perhaps they would not have partisan political judges who vote in the service of one party,

FDR's scheme to pack the Supreme Court was too clever by half. If he had made a straightforward case that he wanted a couple of additional seats on the Court to stop legal obstruction of the New Deal, he might very well have gotten away with it. It is not unprecedented in American history for the number of SCOTUS justices to be changed for overtly political reasons.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) FDR was too sneaky, and too greedy, for his own good. He claimed that the Court needed to be expanded because the incumbent justices were too old, and unable to keep pace with their heavy workload. This meant that when Chief Justice Hughes demonstrated the Court had no problems with its current workload, the public case for adding more seats collapsed. The ruse was too transparent, and made the public feel like FDR was trying to hoodwink them. Adding six extra justices to a Court of nine also struck people as excessive, even if they might have been open to a smaller expansion.

Even after Congress initially rebuffed him, FDR might still have gotten legislation adding just two more seats to the Court. He had a strong ally in Senate Majority Leader Joe Robinson, who had been promised one of those seats for himself. But when Robinson died of a heart attack, the fight was over.

FDR was too cunning to leave the matter there however. Shortly after the Court packing fight, he slipped legislation through Congress which significantly increased the pension for retired judges. This duly produced a rash of retirements from the Supreme Court. By the time FDR was sworn in to his third term, seven of the nine justices on SCOTUS were his appointees.

One of the interesting minor subplots of the Court packing affair was the boost it gave to the career of a young Texas politician named Lyndon Johnson. He ran for Congress on a platform strongly supporting Roosevelt in the fight with the Court, and the issue got him elected. FDR noticed and appreciated the support, and took the young LBJ under his wing as a protégé. With great consequences for subsequent American history.

Willempie said:

Why? The whole American setup is based on achieving a more perfect union, not a perfect union. Whatever your opinion on the founding fathers, they at least realized they weren't perfect, whence the need for those nasty checks.
The whole idea of the SC checking against the constitution is that certain lawmakers might think they have "the solution". Avoiding that might be good if it serves your political viewpoint, but these things have a tendency to boomerang back.

I can tell you what happens if you don't have that check with the risk of going beyond the allowed years, but it is just an illustration. In our constitution it is written that members of parliament aren't allowed to be part of the executive, which is very logical. Yet when a government falls and there are new elections you have a period between the fall and the formation of a new government. Usually members of the fallen government are eligible which leaves us with the situation that a member of parliament is also serving as minister or secretary. The workaround was to have the fallen government to only deal with day-to-day issues, yet that has been shifting for years, also because new governments take longer to form. So now we have the idiotic situation that members of the fallen government resign and are replaced with newly elected members of parliament. In the meantime since there is no new government, the fallen government is acting as if nothing happened. So you now have members of parliament who have to check on themselves in the cabinet. Our council of state, which only advises, thought it was a matter for parliament itself.

And of course you can then still have the problem that the SC makes the wrong decision, but at the very least they write down their reasoning, which you can attack. Much unlike 51% agrees in parliament and you are screwed (or not).

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Then again there is the" shadow docket" where the SC can just decline a case for no stated reason or at least five justices can. I can't comment on Dutch politics due to lack of knowledge. A SC justices is a justice for life and it is virtually impossible to remove them . I am unaware of any SC Justice being removed no matter how senile.
Leftyhunter

Leftyhunter said:

Then again there is the" shadow docket" where the SC can just decline a case for no stated reason or at least five justices can. I can't comment on Dutch politics due to lack of knowledge. A SC justices is a justice for life and it is virtually impossible to remove them . I am unaware of any SC Justice being removed no matter how senile.
Leftyhunter

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My bringing in the Dutch case had very little to do with the case alone, just an illustration of what mess you get without a SC.

And yes I agree SC judges shouldn't wait for the grim reaper and just resign when they feel age or health has caught onto them (Hi RBG). I think the only reason for serving out a lifetime appointment is because royals do so as well. Personally I think you are better served with a judge you disagree with, but is a 100% sane rather then with a judge who can't hold it together.

Absolutely no point having a Supreme Court to perform the function that it does, if the goalposts are moved every time the decisions, potential and actual, don't suit