President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s threat to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with appointees predisposed to uphold the constitutionality of his New Deal programs was an unnecessary risk of political capital. The so-called constitutional revolution of 1937 didn’t need FDR’s provocation because the Court had already been moving toward curtailing constitutional protections for economic liberties.
William F. Shughart II is a Distinguished Research Advisor at the Independent Institute and the J. Fish Smith Professor in Public Choice in the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University.
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Government and PoliticsGovernment PowerPolitical History
Other Independent Review articles by William F. Shughart II
Spring 2023 FDR’s Gambit: The Court Packing Fight and the Rise of Legal Liberalism
Winter 2022/23 The Chevron Doctrine: Its Rise and Fall, and the Future of the Administrative State
Spring 2020 The Naked Emperor: Politics without Romance in The Calculus of Consent
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