In 1937, president franklin roosevelt's call to expand the supreme court came from
History · High School · Thu Feb 04 2021
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In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's call to expand the Supreme Court came from his desire to obtain a more favorable ruling environment for his New Deal legislation, parts of which had been struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. Roosevelt's proposal, often referred to as the "court-packing plan," was officially named the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937. This proposed legislation aimed to add more justices to the Supreme Court, with the justification that older justices needed help keeping up with the workload.
The core idea was to allow the president to appoint an additional justice for every sitting justice over the age of 70 years and 6 months, up to a maximum of 15 justices, effectively giving him the power to shape the ideological balance of the court.