Most of you have heard the ruckus over allegations that Joe Biden will pack the courts if elected, and he won’t deny it when questioned. Many of you may not know what exactly that means, so this is for you. The idea of court packing may go all the way back to the founding of this great country, but it’s most prominent iteration occurred in the 1930’s while FDR was president.
FDR had a big problem during his presidency with the courts, because they were regularly declaring his New Deal actions and programs to be unconstitutional. This was back when the courts still had some sense of self-control when it came to judicial activism. As a result of all of the push back by the courts against his unconstitutional New Deal actions, FDR proposed adding one new justice for each justice that was over seventy years of age, which at the time applied to six justices. So the court could have ended up with fifteen justices.
This was an attempt by FDR to appoint justices who would ignore the Constitution and would instead decide in his favor. However, politicians on both sides of the aisle came out in force against his plan and it never saw the light of day. It appears that even though his plan was refused by Congress, the threat itself was enough to get the Supreme Court to start declaring his unconstitutional actions as constitutional. The change in the court’s voting behavior became known as “the switch in time that saved nine.” So, court packing is the action of altering the established form and function of the courts by appointing additional justices who are political activists in order to shift the balance of power to a particular side. Joe Biden said a day or two ago that President Trump is packing the courts, and that it is unconstitutional. Joe Biden doesn’t know what planet he is on, much less what is constitutional or not. President