Judicial Branch

Stephen Vladeck: Bring Back the Second Part of FDR's SCOTUS Reform Plan

by Stephen Vladeck

As the Supreme Court adopts a posture of governing by injunction before lower court appeals run their course, should revive FDR's proposal that cases seeking to throw out state or federal rules be heard by special panels, not single judges chosen through jurisdiction-shopping. 

Court Reform is Dead! Long Live Court Reform!

by Ryan D. Doerfler and Samuel Moyn

From today's perspective, Biden's commission to investigate reforms to the Supreme Court seems timid and its recommendations minimal. But its report, issued at a moment when the Court seems prepared to go on a spree of consequential rulings, may in the future be regarded as the first domino to fall on the way to major changes.

How Democrats Lost the Courts

"Some Democrats are starting to suspect that the story is simpler: They’ve been chumps. They have clung to norms Republicans long ago abandoned. They have championed moderates in order to appeal to their enemies, only to watch those moderates twist in the wind."

FDR Tried to Pack the Supreme Court During the Depression. It Was a Disaster for Him.

Franklin Roosevelt's efforts to expand the Supreme Court to overcome conservative hostility to the New Deal didn't go well for him, though patience paid off as his judicial antagonists retired or died during his presidency.