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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
not what he meant and you know it. you have heard of FDRs court packing scheme before, right?
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I have, but i've never heard of it called a "scheme" before. Was "caper" too dramatic? How about "FDR's Bench Rape Treason Stratagem"?
President Roosevelt got this crazy notion in his head that he'd end the Great Depression, so he started working to draft a massive package of economic programs in order to (and which eventually did) bring about American economic prosperity again. In response, he was called a fascist and a socialist (but it was too early for people to draw Hitler mustaches on his image... it wouldn't have made sense). The Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 simply said that when a Justice turned 70, they'd age out. Do you know the life expectancy in 1937? It was about 60. FDR's opponents, who ended up being totally wrong about the New Deal, characterized it as a court-stacking scheme, but the 75th Congress never would have confirmed a bunch of pro-New Deal justices... so this accusation was bullshit.
The problem is that the propaganda seems a lot more prevalent today than the actual facts of the case (the wiki is a mess).