Talk:Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937

message: James Crawford Biggs is generally considered "congenial and ineffective."  The press of businss before the Supreme Court overwhelmed him, leading to losses before the Court which might have been avoided. But Stanley Forman Reed was considered a terrific Solicitor General.  Reed's inability to win Supreme Court approval for New Deal legislation was due more to the Court's adherence to Lochner-era jurisprudence than to ineffectiveness. Indeed, under Reed, the Court began its "switch in time". - Tim1965 (talk) 14:14, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That was Eusebeus's edit of my original edit. He was snapping up the prose, if I recall. Either way, the point it that of McKenna's, cited in the article, and not the opinion of either one of us. The point McKenna was making, in more words, is that Biggs was a poor manager of the government's cases before the Court; Reed was not much more effective. I think the evaluation is one of administrative prowess, and not of legal acumen. Foofighter20x (talk) 03:25, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think my edit reflects scholarly consensus. Eusebeus (talk) 13:05, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Reed ineffective?

message: Ok, in the last sentence of the first section (immediately above the contents box) it says "The entire episode garnered several negative consequences for Roosevelt that lasted through the rest of his administration, leading many scholars to conclude the President's victory was a pyrrhic one.[7]" Now, forgive me if I've missed something here, but what victory is being referred to here? In order to have a Pyrrhic victory, one has to have won something. As I've always understood it (and as this article seems to imply) this whole affair was a colossal defeat for the President. If I am missing something here, can someone please enlighten me? SpudHawg948 (talk) 05:45, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  The sentence now lacks any information (even the previous vague "negative consequences") about what was pyrrhic about the victory (setting aside the degree to which it was one).  So now the question is, not how was it a victory, but how was it pyrrhic.  I looked up the source, and the main reasons seem to be that it decreased his popularity, weakened his support among Democrats and hardened opposition by Republicans (among other reasons).  These should probably make it into the article, because right now, it seems tacked on and because it uses weasel words, somewhat fishy. 24.196.67.58 (talk) 02:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: They're not weasel words when they're cited by a reputable source. Make sure you know what a wiki-term means before making objections, please. -- Foofighter20x (talk) 17:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: As a casual reader I was confused by the reference to a pyrrhic victory as the final paragraph seems to refer to the Act and not the "Switch".  I would suggest moving the allusion to the prior paragraph, in which the "Switch" is mentioned rather than leave it in the concluding paragraph.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.221.255.62 (talk) 20:38, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: A Pyrrhic victory is one that comes at a nearly ruinous cost ("Another such victory and I shall be ruined."). In this case, the victory was Roosevelt's—he got the majority on the Court that favored his legislative program, just as he wanted. However, he spent a great deal of political capital getting it and his party took a beating in the 1938 midterms as a result. Additionally, Roosevelt's interference in the 1938 midterms and the shellacking they took as a result of the Court-packing attempt served to solidify the conservative Democratic coalition (which didn't have the same zeal for the New Deal that Roosevelt et al. did) that sat in the political middle and essentially governed domestic social welfare policy for the next 30-odd years.  -- Foofighter20x (talk) 07:08, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pyrrhic Victory??? 

message: The McKenna cite given does not support the addition. Neither do any of its footnotes. It, in fact, states exactly the opposite: Roberts had no foreknowledge of the administration's plans. Thus, my removal of the text in my last edit is justified, and the statement should not be re-inserted unless another verifiable source can be found. -- Foofighter20x (talk) 17:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speculation on Roberts's "foreknowledge" 

message: Foo, you up for another stab? I think we're getting close here. Eusebeus (talk) 08:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure! But you might have to take first chair on this: Life has decided to launch several simultaneous barrages at me. -- Foofighter20x (talk) 17:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back to FA? 

message: Hi all,
I'm aware that it's the commonly-accepted historical interpretation of FDR's actions that his true purpose was to pack the court with like-minded judges.  But unless there was some fireside mea culpa I'm unaware of, FDR himself never admitted to any such motive.  As a result, his stated purpose is the only direct acknowledgement we have of what his intention was:  to ease the burden on an aging court.
Obviously I'm not suggesting we distort WP's portrayal of what was going on.  But isn't it a form of Original Research for us to simply state baldly and without attribution that "court-packing" was Roosevelt's actual intention in fact and not merely what his political enemies were accusing him of?  If we can't find a source or two, wouldn't it be more NPOV to simply state, "a move which his opponents stated had the true intention of" (or some such language) and then describe as court-packing?
Again, just because "everybody knows" what FDR was really up to is no reason for WP to relax its standards.  --Kasreyn (talk) 17:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: For instance, under the section "Antecedents to the Judiciary Reorganization Bill", a statement that Roosevelt "relished" doing something is properly backed-up by a citation in order to justify making a statement about his state of mind.  So, something much more important and more central to the overall thrust of the article - ie., that Roosevelt's stated purpose in the bill was a disingenuous cover for his true intentions - should definitely have some attribution to a source.  I'm sure dozens of neutral and distinguished sources are available.  I went ahead and added a cite needed tag.  -Kasreyn (talk) 17:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Article had a cite from Leuchtenberg in the paragraph following that made essentially the exact same point. Have put in a 2nd cite as such. Hope that works for you. -- Foofighter20x (talk) 20:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source for FDR's intentions? 

message: S/He changed one sentence so much that it no longer reflected the cite supporting it, and simultaneously removed sourced material reflecting the scholarship of G. Edward White, a law professor and legal historian at the University of Virginia School of Law. I've restored the sourced material. I'd like to know why Gunbirddriver removed them without providing sourced justification here on the talk page. -- Foofighter20x (talk) 06:57, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not sure what Gunbirddriver lede edits were doing 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've removed antiquated (2016) and tendentious "maintenance" templates ("overly detailed") that were really expressions of opinion about the content of the article, rather than meaningful contributions to its technical maintenance. I see no evidence whatsoever that there was any consensus behind them. Please do not try to leverage maintenance templates to insist on expressing a particular opinion in an article in the absence of evidence of consensus for such opinion. Instead, allow the normal consensus process to play out.
—Syrenka V (talk) 22:13, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed so-called "maintenance" templates 

message: Court-packing is a major political issue in the American national election right now. We have already seen a concerted attempt by one party and its allies in the news media to redefine "court-packing" away from what was the universally accepted definition until days ago -- increasing the number of judges on the court -- towards a more politically convenient (for them) definition of doing anything that changes the political makeup of the court. Typically in the case of political controversies, politically motivated editors flood in to rewrite Wikipedia articles on related subjects, and Wikipedia has done a very poor job of fending them off. We should watch out for such attempts to rewrite articles about court-packing as well.
98.237.242.206 (talk) 20:42, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah that's definitely an issue. I don't know how these things work, but I feel like making this page semi-protected and creating a separate page for the general concept of court packing would be appropriate. Krehel (talk) 07:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Risk of politicization 

message: The article (see footnotes 7 and 8) says that FDR criticized the Court's failing to hear cases, allowing by the "sheer necessity of its business to decline", and that "87%" of private litigants could not get their case heard. This appears nowhere in the fireside chat to which the note refers, and I could not find the quote elsewhere online. If it comes from something other than the cited fireside chat, it would be good to have that source cited. If it's not, then maybe consider deleting it. (As a lawyer, I find this interesting because the percentage of cases unheard by the Court is now far greater than 87%).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bvernia (talk • contribs) 12:22, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source for "87%" quote 

message: I was unable to find the "McKenna" source for many quotes in the article.    I see now, only from "Robert's Switch" in the Talk, that it is Marion C. McKenna-- The book however is apparently impossible to find, so it is not a useful source on this very interesting subject. Sanjuandav (talk) 00:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing citation for McKenna