Dimensions of Conflict in the Court-Packing Controversy in America 1936-1937
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15633/fhc.3417Keywords:
Supreme Court, president, FDR, New Deal, ideology, reform, electoral mandate, leadership, failureAbstract
1936 brought a lot more than the re-election of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was also a year which brought a broad and radical challenge to the New Deal reform policies. American democracy demonstrated its complexity and unfinishedness. The conflict between FDR and the Supreme Court has many dimensions: institutional – conflict between the government (the president, Congress and the Administration) and the US Supreme Court over the range of powers of each actor; political – regarding the accountability of political elites; socio-economic – regarding the direction of development of American democracy; philosophical – over the meaning of liberty; legal – regarding the separation of powers between the levels of government; personal – between persons and personalities representing divergent visions of power; and historical – reviving the constitutional debates from the early republic. For some, the clash between FDR and the USSC touched the very essence of the representative democracy. After a year, the level of tensions subsided and all parties were scarred, yet the political system as such demonstrated its resilience. Its outcome to these days serves as a pretext for deliberations about the relations between leaders and followers. Events in America may be useful for all countries where the autonomy of the judicial branch of government becomes a political issue.
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