The Volokh Conspiracy
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Today in Supreme Court History: March 9, 1937
3/9/1937: President Roosevelt delivers a fireside chat on his Court-packing plan.
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I support a new Judiciary Act. The Supreme Court insists on making law. It should have the size of a legislature. It should be moved to the center of the US, like Wichita, KS. It has to be removed from the rent seeking, big government capital of the US, Washington DC. No matter how conservative, one adapts to its culture after a short time. Then open the seats to the local jury pool. Exclude anyone who has passed 1L. One advantage is the end of the whining about the low pay.
I am afraid that we would get a whole lot more of West Parish Hotel progressive jurisprudence if the court were to be packed like a legislature.
The bottom line is that the result would be unpredictable. However, a 500 Justices court would have the advantage of the wisdom of the crowd. Hopefully, there would be more representation than by Ivy indoctrinated, big government advocates, no matter their political affiliation.
Add an even number of Justices to the Judiciary Act. The awful 5-4 decisions, overturning prior precedent being followed by the lower courts, would stop.
The United States Supreme Court issued its Amistad ruling on March 9, 1841.
Prof. Blackman disregards that one, preferring to lather the right-wing rubes by mentioning a Presidential radio broadcast that addressed the issue of (never-realized) Court enlargement.
At least he got the date correct this time, which is substantial progress.
Good one, Artie. You are a lawyer.
“… that the said negroes be, and are hereby, declared to be free, and that they be dismissed from the custody of the Court, and be discharged from the suit and go thereof quit without day.”
These people were captured, and moved. They were not property. Good example of effective legal liability, and the reading of plain English by the Court. This is such a rare correct decision, a movie was made about it.
I was listening to a news archive story from 1991 and it sounded like it could have been laid down today. The subject was racial unrest and a bad economy. This sounds like it could have been Biden word for word. Everything that is old is new again. Either that or the Matrix has run out of content so is just recycling the past.
I am not entirely sold on court packing, but if it happens, it will be the entirely predictable result of Merrick Garland not getting a hearing followed by Amy Coney Barrett getting a rocket-docket hearing. Did Republicans think the Democrats would just let that pass?
The Democrats need to rush. Everything they do, is getting reversed in 2022, as the agonies of the American people sink in. The $4 gas is almost here. Massive impoverishment of Democrat constituencies. Wild West crime rates in all Democrat jurisidictions. Inflation. Welcome to the Democrat Hellscape, America.
You forgot to mention UFO aliens will be landing from Mars, the Kraken will be loosed from the sea to devour coastal cities, the great rivers will all be turned to piss and the sun will burn out.
In the meantime, it’s almost 1:00 so the bird in my clock will be emerging to discuss your views once again.
I don’t understand Republican optimism concerning 2022.
Republican senators facing 2022 campaigns are jumping off the U.S.S. Clinger weekly. A half-dozen more Republican-held seats than Democratic-held seats will be contested with respect to Class 3 (but more Democratic incumbents than Republican incumbents will be running).
Perhaps most important, the American electorate becomes less rural, less religious, less White, less bigoted, and less backward daily as stale, intolerant clingers die off and are replaced by better people.
Republicans could overcome those points, but the electoral terrain becomes less hospitable to conservatives every day in modern America.
And that’s before the Douglass Commonwealth, Puerto Rico, and the Pacific Islands are proposed for statehood.
See you down that road apiece, clingers.
No Kraken. No UFO’s. No cuckoo birds. Just Democrats are here, bringing their hellscape. The surges in all economic and in all social pathologies are here. $4 gas. Murders, suicides, and overdoses are already bustin’ records. Next? Inflation will soar after crack addicts and other Democrats get those stimulus checks. I pray the commenters live in Democrat cities.
If only FDR knew that Owen Roberts had already switched sides.
FDR, lawyer uber dumbass even before his brain was damaged by polio and by untreated hypertension. What a truly stupid man. His awful judgment delayed the natural recovery from the Depression by a decade. He was told about the Japanese threat, and sold them iron. He was a foam at the mouth rabid anti-Semite. A perfect storm of lawyer stupidity, disloyalty to the country, and hate.