16. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his attempt to pack the Supreme Court
Franklin Roosevelt won a second term as President in a landslide in 1936, despite the fact that many of his programs and reforms, part of the New Deal, had by then been overturned by the Supreme Court. In 1937, Roosevelt announced legislation to alter the Supreme Court, allowing the President to add one justice for each justice on the bench over the age of 70. At the time there were six justices who met that age requirement, which would have allowed the President to add six justices, presumably of a much younger age, to the nine sitting justices. The number of justices had been established as nine in 1869, and the size of the court had been altered several times in history, which FDR used as an argument in support of his plan.
FDR was surprised, given his popularity revealed in the most recent election, with the animosity with which his proposal was met in Congress. Prominent members of his own party denounced the idea as a power grab that would enhance the executive branch at the expense of the legislative and judiciary branches. His own Vice-President, John Nance Garner, led the opposition, which led to him being dropped from the Democratic ticket in 1940 by a still angry Roosevelt. Roosevelt lost prestige and influence in Congress as a result of the power grab, though by 1941 seven justices had been replaced by the President as nature took its course, and his expansion of the federal government was looked on more favorably by the Supreme Court.
