Packed Court?

FDR tried it and failed; new effort doomed, too

Back during the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was having a hard time getting his recovery programs past the conservative U.S. Supreme Court.

The court struck down key provisions of Roosevelt’s New Deal over a period of months beginning in 1935. The president wasn’t happy.

So he came up with the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, which would allow the president to add a new court member for every current justice age 70 who had served at least 10 years and failed to retire within six months.

He was, of course, trying to pack the court with justices more likely to see things his way.

The bill never came to a vote. The justices, Congress and the public were vocal in their opposition.

Fast forward more than 80 years. On Wednesday, a handful of congressional Democrats on Thursday announced a court-packing plan of their own, aiming to raise the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to 13. Since the Democrats have the White House and both chambers of Congress, the idea is to appoint liberal justices who will serve for years to come.

But this time around will be no different. There is not a lot of support for the plan and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already said she won’t allow the bill to come to a vote.

That’s as it should be. The U.S. Constitution doesn’t specify the number of justices on the nation’s highest court. But the court has served the nation well with nine members for more than 150 years. And will continue to do so.