The Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 was a bill proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, which would give him the power to assign an additional Supreme Court Justice for every Justice that was currently over the age of 70 years old. He thought of the idea because many of his New Deal ideas were turned down by the current Supreme Court Justices. This act is also known as the Court-Packing Bill. He wanted to do this also because he would have to wait until a current Justice retired in order to employ a new Supreme Court Justice.This bill was made to make the amount of work that each elderly judge had to do less. It would have allowed FDR to appoint one judge for each sitting judge over the age of 70. Roosevelt first told the country of this bill idea during his 9th fireside chat. When he submitted this bill to Congress a huge fight started. Many people thought that this would cause FDR to have control over the Supreme Court. He would get control because he would employ Justices that were in favor of the New Deal.
This bill led to many people becoming anti-Roosevelt. Even though the bill failed it may have actually been successful. An example of this is when Owen J. Roberts switched his vote in favor of New Deal Bills. He did this because he was afraid of losing his job, and switched the Supreme Court’s vote in favor of the New Deal Plans. The quote “The switch in time that saved nine” refers to Roberts switching his vote in favor of New Deal practices that were meant to help the country after the Great Depression. He wanted to keep the number of Supreme Court Justices at nine.
I think that if this bill was passed many people would have perceived FDR as some kind of a dictator because he only wanted this to be passed so his New Deal acts could be passed. I think that Robert’s decision to switch his vote was good because he was only trying to keep the number of Supreme Court Justices at nine. This bill could have helped the country because it would have helped pass more New Deal bills; however it made FDR look like he wanted total control, in my opinion.Sources_http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/court-packing-bill/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_switch_in_time_that_saved_nine
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