Dick Durbin: “the year was 1936. President Franklin Roosevelt had just been reelected with an overwhelming majority, and he decided he…”

“the year was 1936. President Franklin Roosevelt had just been reelected with an overwhelming majority, and he decided he had had enough of the U.S. Supreme Court. They had been striking down some key pieces of legislation in his New Deal package. So he came up with a bold plan in February of 1937. That bold plan was to add enough new Justices to the Supreme Court to tip the balance his way. He presented this plan to change the Supreme Court for his political purposes to a Democratic Congress and a Democratic U.S. Senate, believing, with his big reelection majority and the fact that most of the Members of Congress had supported his New Deal agenda, that they would stand by him when it came to changing the Supreme Court so that it would start ruling his way. He was wrong. What happened then was that Members of the Senate decided to stand up to their President and to stand up for the Constitution. A little-known Senator from Arizona, Henry Ashurst, was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He deliberately delayed the FDR Court-packing proposal to a point where, when it was finally called, it was overwhelmingly defeated. Think about that in the context of our current debate about filling this Supreme Court vacancy created by the untimely death of Justice Scalia. In that case, in 1937, the Senate Judiciary Committee and its chairman stood up for the Constitution first, over and above even the President of their own political party.…”