Court Packing

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On February 5, 1937, with little to no warning, President Franklin D. Roosevelt surprised the nation by announcing a program that would later be known as his “court-packing scheme.” He proposed judicial reforms, drafting a bill that proposed a reorganization of the Supreme Court, which drew widespread complaints of packing the bench.
His plan was not entirely new, as he stated in his “Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary,” on March 9, 1937. He stated that, “Normally, every president appoints a large number of District and Circuit Court Judges and a few members of the Supreme Court. Until my first term, practically every President of the United States has appointed at least one member of the Supreme Court.” He explained that President Taft had appointed five members, President Wilson had appointed three, and President Harding had appointed four, including a Chief Justice. President Coolidge had appointed one justice, and President Hoover had appointed three, including a Chief Justice. His plan for reorganization was merely a revival of a plan suggested by Justice McReynolds, himself, when he was Attorney General of the United States.
In his “Fireside Chat,” it appears that Roosevelt appealed to the American people for their aid in passage of this bill. He stated, “ It is the American people themselves who are in the driver’s seat. It is the American people themselves who want the furrow plowed. It is the American people themselves who expect the third horse to pull in unison with the other two.” The third horse that he referred to was the Courts. He described the American form of Government as a three-horse team provided by the Constitution to the American people “so that their field might be plowed.” He believed that the other two “horses,” the Congress and the Executive Branch, were “ pulling in unison today; the third horse is not,” meaning that the Courts were severely behin...