Judicial Agenda of President Franklin

Judicial agenda of President Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Judicial Philosophy and Agenda of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)

Especially in light of today's economic crisis, the reputation of the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is viewed as sacrosanct. However, Roosevelt's term in office was ridden with many controversies, particularly during the early days of his New Deal that have since been forgotten. One of the most contentious quests Roosevelt embarked upon was his attempt to expand or 'pack' the U.S. Supreme Court with new justices, when the elderly, conservative members of the Court proved unwilling uphold the constitutionality of critical aspects of his New Deal legislation. Because of the Supreme Court's intransience, FDR feared his entire social vision and economic recovery program was going to be railroaded by unelected, old men in black robes. Roosevelt's fundamental philosophy about the relationship of the executive branch and the judicial branch was that the purpose of the government was to serve the people, and to preserve the nation. If that meant overriding the U.S. Supreme Court, so be it -- the executive branch was directly elected by the populace. In his Fireside Chat on the Reorganization of the Judiciary, March 9, 1937, Roosevelt said what was soon dubbed his 'court packing plan' would "provide a reinvigorated, liberal-minded judiciary necessary to furnish quicker and cheaper justice from bottom to top."

FDR was determined to bring the nation back from economic ruin. Many people wanted America to revert to total socialism, and FDR feared the specter of radicalism, as manifest in Russia at the time. He also feared the foot-dragging of conservative Republicans who agreed with the former President Herbert Hoover's contention that the business cycle would correct itself. Even more so than President Obama today, when Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1933, the nation was in an economic, political, and moral crisis. America was depressed and in the midst of a Great Depression. Thus Roosevelt initiated unprecedented government regulation over the economy. He devalued the dollar and placed American industries and agriculture under a system of controls, codes and production quotas (Pusey 1958). But in 1935, Supreme Court declared one of the key features of FDR's alphabet soup of programs, the National Recovery Administration (NRA)'s unconstitutional and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote a unanimous Supreme Court decision that effectively neutered the NRA and its Blue Eagle program (Pusey 1958). The Blue Eagle was a government seal of approval that went to any business that pledged support for the NRA (Lord 2003). Blue Eagle businesses had minimum wages, ceilings on hours and allowed workers the right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining. FDR encouraged consumers to only patronize Blue Eagle businesses (Lord 2003).

The case that struck down the NRA, in another interesting parallel with today involved food poisoning. A company was marketing diseased chicken in violation of the NRA's poultry code. Their lawyers contended only that Congress had no power to regulate local business. The court used this case to invalidate the whole industrial recovery act. It said Congress and the President had illegally extended federal control over what were local business activities that were not related to interstate commerce (Pusey 1958). In 1936, the Court struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) farm subsidy bill, ruling that the states, not the federal government, had the power to regulate agriculture. Soon after, a majority struck down the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act and New York State's minimum wage law for women -- only the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) providing electricity to an impoverished community survived ("Presidential politics: FDR," the American Experience, 2009).

After his sweeping re-election, Roosevelt moved against the court. He introduced a bill with a provision giving the President authority to name an additional federal judge for every incumbent who had been on the bench ten years and had not resigned within six months after reaching the age of seventy, including justices on the Supreme Court (Pusey 1995). FDR believed that this would make the Court more responsive to the needs of the time, by limiting both the tenure and the age of Court. "As six members of the Supreme Court had passed that age limit, FDR could immediately have appointed six new justices. If Chief Justice Hughes and his five aged associates had chosen to remain, the membership of the court would have been enlarged from nine to fifteen" (Pusey 1995).

A small group of constitutional lawyers advised Roosevelt in the construction of the bill, assuring him that the Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress would pass it. When Roosevelt introduced the bill, Roosevelt used the euphemism of judicial 'reform' rather than said it was an attempt to circumvent the recent rulings of the Supreme Court. He framed his plan as a way of relieving the pressures of overcrowded court dockets. However, some of the phrases he used made his feelings clear, namely his reference to the problems of lifetime appointments, or "aged or infirm judges," (Menaker 2008).

When he spoke of justices of advanced ages, the President was obviously speaking of his opponents on the Court, the so-called anti-government Four Horsemen of the New Deal Apocalypse, all over the age of seventy: Justices Butler, McReynolds, Sutherland and Van Devanter. Roosevelt said older men often lack "mental or physical vigor" which "leads men to avoid an examination of complicated and changed conditions" (Menaker 2008). He added: "older men, assuming that the scene is the same as it was in the past, cease to explore or inquire into the present or the future" (Menaker 2008). Hence, the need to reduce the influence of old judges.

The Senate hearings on the Bill, particularly after the testimony of Chief Justice Hughes about how an enlarged court would be more unwieldy and inefficient, roused the ire of both legislators and the public against Roosevelt's plan, especially after Chief Justice Hughes showed that the court's docket was not overcrowded. Yet while the doomed bill was debated, the Supreme Court suddenly decided that their previous conclusion in the New York minimum-wage case had been wrong. In December of 1936, the Court voted four-to-four to uphold a similar Washington minimum-age law and to reverse its previous decision. Roosevelt had said he wanted his new justices to be more responsive to the needs of the public. While the justices decried this on principle, in action they began to move to support Roosevelt's desire for change. On April 12 the Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act and confirmed the power of Congress to regulate industrial relations having a direct impact on interstate commerce. When a few weeks later the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected the Roosevelt's 'packing the Court' legislation, the Court validated the constitutionality of Social Security (Pusey 1958).