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The Abiding Shame of ‘Packing’ the Supreme Court

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The Abiding Shame of ‘Packing’ the Supreme Court
(L-R) Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) hold a press conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 15, 2021. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Josh Hammer
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Commentary

In 2005, then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) delivered a Senate floor speech about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s doomed 1937 plan to “pack” the U.S. Supreme Court. FDR’s plan would have permitted him to add six justices, immediately securing a pro-New Deal judicial majority.

Josh Hammer
Josh Hammer
Author
Josh Hammer is opinion editor of Newsweek, a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation, counsel and policy advisor for the Internet Accountability Project, a syndicated columnist through Creators, and a contributing editor for Anchoring Truths. A frequent pundit and essayist on political, legal, and cultural issues, Hammer is a constitutional attorney by training. He hosts “The Josh Hammer Show,” a Newsweek podcast, and co-hosts the Edmund Burke Foundation's “NatCon Squad” podcast. Hammer is a college campus speaker through Intercollegiate Studies Institute and Young America's Foundation, as well as a law school campus speaker through the Federalist Society. Prior to Newsweek and The Daily Wire, where he was an editor, Hammer worked at a large law firm and clerked for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Hammer has also served as a John Marshall Fellow with the Claremont Institute and a fellow with the James Wilson Institute. Hammer graduated from Duke University, where he majored in economics, and from the University of Chicago Law School. He lives in Florida, but remains an active member of the State Bar of Texas.
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