In a message dated 8/28/02 2:02:10 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< Sure, there is a little of this. But again, I doubt this matters much. The Supreme Court held off New Deal legislation a little bit for a couple of years, but after 4 years it caved in completely. >> This must be one of the most inaccurately reported events in US history. The Supreme Court didn't "cave in" on New Deal legislation under pressure from FDR's toothless court-packing scheme. When FDR announced his scheme, prominent Democrat congressional leaders from the liberal wing of the party publicly denounced him; there was virtually no support in Congress from anyone for his scheme and no chance it would have created the new positions for him to fill. On the contrary, the Supreme Court voided early New Deal legislation because the Court saw the legislation as taking power from Congress and giving it to the president, thus tipping the balance of power in the federal government more to one of the two other branches, and thus potentially threatening the power of the Court itself. The later New Deal legislation scrupulously avoided such transfers of power, and the Supreme Court (same court) had no problem allowing a transfer of power from individuals to the federal government. Thus the Court acted to defend its own relative share of federal power in the early cases while quite consistently acting to expand the total sum of federal power in the later cases. David Levenstam
