Mar
30
Court-packing
From Alan Brinkley’s review of Jeff Shesol’s “Supreme Power”, about FDR’s attempt to expand the Supreme Court, a charming detail I’d never heard before:
Shesol also draws attention to a more mundane but nevertheless considerable factor in the shift of the court. In 1937 Roosevelt supported, and Congress approved, a bill to assure retired justices that they would continue to receive their judicial salaries even after retirement. The absence of such benefits had deterred some aged justices from retiring; once the pensions were assured, several of them resigned.
Would that Obama had such low-hanging fruit to pick.
