One such time was FDR’s Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary, March 9, 1937. Like today the country had a very popular President. Like today the country was in a recession. Like today, the Democrats held majorities in both houses of Congress. Like today, the Supreme Court was often split 5-4 on various decisions. I could go on …
Fast forward to 2013. Let’s assume President Obama wins re-election the year before. You can substitute our present president’s remarks with those of FDR in 1937. The years and communication technology were different, but…
“I am reminded of that evening in March, four years ago, when I made my first radio report to you. We were then in the midst of the great banking crisis. In 1933 you and I knew that we must never let our economic system get completely out of joint again-that we could not afford to take the risk of another Great Depression.
“We also became convinced that the only way to avoid a repetition of those dark days was to have a government with power to prevent and to cure the abuses and the inequalities which had thrown that system out of joint.
“We then began a program of remedying those abuses and inequalities-to give balance and stability to our economic system, to make it bomb-proof against the causes of 1929.
“Today we are only part-way through that program- and recovery is speeding up to a point where the dangers of 1929 are again becoming possible, not this week or month perhaps, but within a year or two.
“National laws are needed to complete that program. Individual or local or state effort alone cannot protect us in 1937 any better than ten years ago.
“It will take time - and plenty of time - to work out our remedies administratively even after legislation is passed. To complete our program of protection in time, therefore, we cannot delay one moment in making certain that our national government has power to carry through.
“Four years ago action did not come until the eleventh hour. It was almost too late. But since the rise of the modern movement for social and economic progress through legislation, the (Supreme) Court has more and more often and more and more boldly asserted a power to veto laws passed by the Congress and by state legislatures…
“What is my proposal? It is simply this: whenever a judge or justice of any federal court has reached the age of seventy and does not avail himself of the opportunity to retire on a pension, a new member shall be appointed by the president then in office, with the approval, as required by the Constitution, of the Senate of the United States.
“That plan has two chief purposes. By bringing into the judicial system a steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood, I hope, first, to make the administration of all federal justice, from the bottom to the top, speedier and, therefore, less costly; secondly, to bring to the decision of social and economic problems younger men who have had personal experience and contact with modern facts and circumstances under which average men have to live and work. This plan will save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries.
“The number of judges to be appointed would depend wholly on the decision of present judges now over seventy, or those who would subsequently reach the age of seventy.
“If, for instance, any one of the six justices of the Supreme Court now over the age of seventy should retire as provided under the plan, no additional place would be created. Consequently, although there never can be more than fifteen, there may be only fourteen, or thirteen, or twelve. And there may be only nine...”
There are similarities between the direction our current President is taking this country and the rhetoric of FDR. The “New Deal” president wanted to stack the Court to be more favorable to his agenda…thus the proposal to add SC justices up to a total of fifteen.
After FDR’s first election in 1932, his Recovery Act cut pensions of retired Supreme Court pensions by 50%. Any similarities between the present administration’s desire to cut and cap salaries of CEOs who receive government bailout money?
Consider the dazzling speed of Obama’s proposals. Consider the urgency with which he described the need for the 2nd stimulus package. Consider the physical impossibility of legislators to have the time to read the language of the 2nd stimulus package with its many “pork” addenda. Reread the FDR fireside chat. Note the urgency it conveys and the unabashed grab for more power.
Consider the passage of HR 2454 "The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009". Its goal, as stated from its official title, is "To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy."
HR 2454 is downloadable in a PDF file which counts out at 1,201 pages. Rep. Henry Waxman, a sponsor of the bill, was asked during a hearing if he had read it. He admitted that he had not, nor, in my opinion, did any House member have time to before the vote June 26th.
I am tempted to ask if we even need Congress. We have an administration that is leading this country into the world of FDR, the one U.S. dictator this country elected four times.
The legislation this Congress has passed since January 20th , and will pass in the upcoming months, will be challenged in the courts.
Let’s hope that the American people stand up before the fast-forwarded speech of 2013 and decide that we too need a Supreme Court as a check and balance against out-of-control legislative and judicial branches. Oops, I forgot, the President nominates Supreme Court justices.
Nah, it couldn’t happen again…
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