page_title: Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937
section_title: The New Deal in court
hierarchical_section_title: Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 / The New Deal in court
context_page_description: The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 was a legislative initiative proposed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to obtain favorable rulings regarding New Deal legislation that the Court had ruled unconstitutional. The central provision of the bill would have granted the President power to appoint an additional Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, up to a maximum of six, for every member of the court over the age of 70 years and 6 months.
  In the Judiciary Act of 1869, Congress had established that the United States Supreme Court would consist of the Chief Justice and eight associate justices. During Roosevelt's first term the Supreme Court struck down several New Deal measures as being unconstitutional. Roosevelt sought to reverse this by changing the makeup of the court through the appointment of new additional justices who he hoped would rule his legislative initiatives did not exceed the constitutional authority of the government. Since the U.S. Constitution does not define the size of the Supreme Court, Roosevelt pointed out that it was within the power of the Congress to change it.
context_section_description: Roosevelt was wary of the Supreme Court early in his first term, and his administration was slow to bring constitutional challenges of New Deal legislation before the court. However, early wins for New Deal supporters came in Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell and Nebbia v. New York at the start of 1934. At issue in each case were state laws relating to economic regulation. Blaisdell concerned the temporary suspension of creditor's remedies by Minnesota in order to combat mortgage foreclosures, finding that temporal relief did not, in fact, impair the obligation of a contract. Nebbia held that New York could implement price controls on milk, in accordance with the state's police power. While not tests of New Deal legislation themselves, the cases gave cause for relief of administration concerns about Associate Justice Owen Roberts, who voted with the majority in both cases. Roberts's opinion for the court in Nebbia was also encouraging for the administration:
  [T]his court from the early days affirmed that the power to promote the general welfare is inherent in government. 
  Nebbia also holds a particular significance: it was the one case in which the Court abandoned its jurisprudential distinction between the "public" and "private" spheres of economic activity, an essential distinction in the court's analysis of state police power. The effect of this decision radiated outward, affecting other doctrinal methods of analysis in wage regulation, labor, and the power of the U.S. Congress to regulate commerce.
caption: Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts. The balance of the Supreme Court in 1935 caused the Roosevelt administration much concern over how Roberts would adjudicate New Deal challenges.
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