FDR Announces Judicial Reorganization Plan to Add Up to Six Supreme Court Justices, Triggering Court-Packing Crisis

On February 5, 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt announces the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill, requesting congressional authority to appoint up to six additional Supreme Court justices—one for each sitting justice over age 70—potentially expanding the Court from nine to fifteen members. Roosevelt presents the plan without advance warning to congressional leaders including Vice President John Nance Garner and Representative Hatton Sumners, claiming the aging Court needs additional justices to handle its caseload because current members are “slow and infirm” and behind in their work. The timing is carefully calculated to present legislation before the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on Wagner Act cases (scheduled February 8) but after the annual White House dinner for the Court (February 2), falling between a Senate recess (February 3-5) and the weekend. Roosevelt argues the judiciary should be reorganized “in order that it also may function in accord with modern necessities,” noting Congress has changed the number of justices six times previously.

The proposal emerges from Roosevelt’s fury over the conservative Court majority’s systematic invalidation of New Deal legislation, including the unanimous “Black Monday” Schechter Poultry decision (May 27, 1935) striking down the National Industrial Recovery Act and the 6-3 United States v. Butler ruling (January 6, 1936) invalidating the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The conservative 5-4 majority’s “horse-and-buggy definition of interstate commerce” and narrow interpretation of federal regulatory power threatens to dismantle Roosevelt’s entire economic recovery program despite overwhelming popular support—FDR won the 1936 election in a landslide, expanding Democratic congressional majorities while corporate-backed opponents suffered crushing defeats. Roosevelt’s court reform bill rests on constitutional authority, as Article III grants Congress power to determine Court size and the number has varied from six to ten justices throughout American history.

The court-packing plan triggers immediate fierce opposition from Republicans, conservative Democrats, and judicial independence advocates who view it as an assault on separation of powers and an attempt to “overwhelm” dissenting justices “with new members” to achieve political outcomes. Vice President Garner loathes the plan from the outset, believing it threatens party harmony. The Senate Judiciary Committee—despite Democratic control—issues a scathing June 14, 1937 report calling the measure “a needless, futile and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle” and “an invasion of judicial power such as has never before been attempted in this Country,” with seven Democrats signing the adverse recommendation. The plan ultimately dies in July 1937 after Senate Majority Leader Joseph Robinson suffers a fatal heart attack during debate, with the Senate voting 70-22 to kill the bill—representing Roosevelt’s greatest legislative defeat and fracturing the Democratic coalition that had sustained New Deal programs.