NY Times By Barry Friedman 10/8/2018
If it swings too far to the right, expect a response.In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt went after the Supreme Court. He was infuriated that a conservative majority of justices kept striking down New Deal measures he felt were essential to pull the country out of the Great Depression. So, fresh from his overwhelming second-term electoral victory, Roosevelt proposed adding as many as six additional justices to the nation’s highest bench.
Filling those new vacancies would give him a clear majority on the court, presumably ensuring his future legislative proposals would be upheld. Roosevelt’s “court-packing†plan cast the country into six months of furious debate over the propriety of such a move. In the end the plan evaporated, but not before the court capitulated. Roosevelt’s proposal set off a genuine constitutional crisis, with little else on the national agenda getting any attention.
Why should we care about what happened some 80 years ago?
Because with the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh, an extremely conservative majority now is fully in control of the court, which, at some point in the future — perhaps five or 10 years from now — could lead to another crisis much like the one in 1937.
Anyone watching the deeply troubled, and troubling, confirmation process for Justice Kavanaugh surely understands the depth of anger on the left, which is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon. If the country moves left in the next few years, as the court moves right, we have the makings for a serious collision.
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/opinion/kavanaugh-supreme-court-conservative.html
