Hello all, I’m heading up the sequel to my last diary, which states, historically and equivocally, that partisanship, indeed, never was the problem. Here’s my last diary on Theodore Roosevelt, the Gilded Age, and the Robber barons.
Partisanship Was Never the Problem Pt 1
I started this series, for I have noticed many of the partisans, particularly the Obama partisans, wishing upon a star, that FDR achieved Social Security through compromise and bridging the partisan divide because some of his proposals were struck down by the SCOTUS. Particularly the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937, which was not passed in it’s full form, yet ultimately it was no failure at all. Let’s take a look at the proceedings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Franklin Roosevelt sought a way to ensure his legislative agenda after the Supreme Court of the United States repeatedly invalidated elements of his New Deal by decisions finding those elements unconstitutional, including the Agricultural Adjustment Act in United States v. Butler et al (1936) and the National Recovery Administration in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935). Although "inclined to wait until a vacancy naturally occurred on the Court," Roosevelt's first term passed without the opportunity to appoint a justice.
Increasingly frustrated, Roosevelt turned to a traditional means to change the balance of the Court; namely, to change the number of justices. Article III of the U.S. Constitution is silent as to how many justices may serve on the Court at any given time. Instead, the Constitution simply provides that the "judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court..." without specifying the number of justices on that Court[1]. Only the office of "Chief Justice" is self-executing, as it alone is mentioned in the Constitution in Article I, section 3 as the officer responsible for presiding over presidential impeachments[2]. The number of justices had been set and changed in the following years, under circumstances suggesting reasons for the changes as indicated:
This is what the content of this Bill entailed.
Presented as a bill to relieve the workload on elderly judges, the bill would have allowed President Roosevelt to appoint one judge for each sitting judge over age 70 and six months with a new judge with at least ten years experience. Roosevelt would then have the ability to appoint six more Supreme Court justices immediately (presumably possessing a judicial philosophy not hostile to his agenda), increasing the size of the court to 15 members. The Democratic Congress undoubtedly would have summarily confirmed his choices. In Roosevelt's sights were the conservative appointments of the business-oriented Republican Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Because the justices against the New Deal held the majority by only one vote (5-4), even two such appointments would reset the equilibrium in favor of Roosevelt (6-5).
This also shows the importance of the SCOTUS, and why Barack Obama’s tacit support of Justice Alito worries me (Unitary Executive Theory) because as I have mentioned earlier in previous diaries, consumer rights must be fought for and properly interpreted in the courts like John has properly fought for and interpreted for over 20 years against the forces that killed UHC in 93. Otherwise we will get appointments from an Obama cabinet that will halt any UHC proposals and what makes them worthwhile, in the same vein as the opposition that FDR faced with his New Deal platforms; this is why he took this path, however controversial it was at the time. Sometimes the most progressive ideas face the most opposition, even in our own party, as we have also seen in "93" when concessions were automatically handed out by Bill Clinton, thus paving the way for HRC’s UHC plan to ultimately be butchered and defeated. Let’s take a look at the opposition of this proposal:
Top aides suggested alternative judicial reforms—a constitutional amendment allowing a two-thirds vote of Congress to overrule Supreme Court rulings, for example—but Roosevelt would not budge. He also downplayed worries about the disingenuousness of his message, which said his bill was the best solution to an alleged judicial backlog rather than an attack on a Supreme Court exercising its constitutional duties to balance the powers of the executive and judicial branches. Republicans like Herbert Hoover, whom FDR defeated in the 1932 presidential election, accused Roosevelt of attempting "to pack the court." But the president's political enemies did far less damage to his cause than his friends. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Hatton W. Sumners made this ominous statement to colleagues about his support of Roosevelt: "Boys, this is where I cash in my chips." Other Democrats, such as Senator George Norris of Nebraska, who had empaneled a national conference on judicial reform soon after Roosevelt's inauguration, announced his opposition to the court-packing bill. So did Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, who ultimately became the measure's most vocal foe. Even Justice Louis D. Brandeis, the oldest member of the court, privately expressed his opposition.
Notice the bold. Roosevelt stood firm, even against key prominent members of his own party and cabinet. This kind of opposition seemed daunting at the time, but for Roosevelt, the principles of these reforms were the most important aspect of this fight. Roosevelt was a fighter, not a capitulator, and standing down in the face of the opposition from his own party was not an option, despite what ensued as something some people might call a defeat and proof that demanding progressive change didn’t work. Roosevelt also engaged the American people in his March 9th fireside chat, in a way that was effective, unlike the mistake HRC made in not engaging the 80% of the populace who were open to the idea of UHC, unlike opinion polls concerning the New Deal, but Roosevelt, like the fighter he was, pushed on anyway.. FDR directly engaged the American people on the importance of SS and the New Deal in order to bring about the debated
Roosevelt promoted the bill in his 9th Fireside Chat, broadcast over national radio on March 9, 1937. (Text and audio.) After submitting his plan to Congress, a heated argument ensued. Some Roosevelt supporters hailed the action as a sign of strong leadership during tough times. However, opponents seized on Roosevelt's explanation of why the bill was necessary. William Allen White, one of the most renowned editorialists of his day, reached this conclusion Feb. 6: "Because he is adroit and not forthright, he arouses irritating suspicions, probably needlessly, about his ultimate intentions as the leader of his party and the head of government." Still confident that he could win the public's backing despite opinion polls that indicated otherwise, Roosevelt ignored much of the criticism.
I also hail this as strong leadership in the same regard as I hold John Edwards proposal to use the same bully pulpit against the opponents of UHC in Congress, because it’s the same kind of battle, where there is little or no common ground. I wish Obama’s supporters could understand that. Like I stated earlier, FDR’s philosophy is in the same as the founding furthers, for they knew the Constitution would have to be altered for the times, for the people’s benefit of course, which is why we have amendments and common law precedents through decision in the SCOTUS. Here’s his overall philosophy, though it did not get through at the time in the manner that FDR had hoped for:
On the March 9 Fireside chat, he acknowledged his true intentions — to create a Supreme Court that could understand these modern conditions — but it had no measurable influence on public opinion. Support began to slip after Senate Judiciary Committee hearings in March, and by June, Roosevelt reluctantly agreed to a compromise that would have allowed him to name just two new justices. But it was too late. On June 14, the committee issued a scathing report that called FDR's plan "a needless, futile and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle... without precedent or justification." The opposition, led by John Garner, strongly opposed the plan as an abuse of presidential authority because they believed the bill would have given the President indirect control of the Supreme Court by adding justices that favored his New Deal programs.
The plan was introduced into the United States Senate first because Roosevelt expected stronger opposition in the House of Representatives. The Senate opened debate on the substitute proposal July 2. Roosevelt depended on his Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson, to get the votes necessary to pass the bill. Contemporary wisdom ran that only Robinson had the clout and I.O.U.s to turn the tide in Roosevelt's favor. But almost on the eve of the roll call, he left the chamber with chest pains. On July 14th, a housemaid found Robinson dead of a heart attack in his apartment, the Congressional Record at his side. With Robinson gone so too were the hopes of passage. Vice President John Nance Garner had the unenviable task of telling Roosevelt, "You haven't got the votes." On July 22, the Senate voted 70-20 to send the judicial-reform measure back to committee, where all the controversial language was stripped from it. The Senate passed the revised legislation a week later, and Roosevelt signed it into law Aug. 26.
Though everything that FDR wanted in this proposal was not technically passed being only allowed two SCOTUS justices, the sudden death of his Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson, whom he depended on to help him push this through Congress, and some of the language that was deemed controversial was stripped from the bill; the most successful government program to date was initially passed and signed into law. This was not a result of bipartisanship or "changing our politics" this was a fight brought to the halls of Congress and the SCOTUS by one of our most revered Presidents in history. Here’s a summary that I think sums up that point as well:
Although President Roosevelt lost the battle in Congress, he won the war to change the judicial philosophy of the Supreme Court. It also cost the heretofore invincible President political capital. Conservative Democrats, now emboldened, could oppose FDR and live to tell about it, turning his "second term into a congressional nightmare." Newsweek January 1, 2007
The term congressional nightmare is exaggerated, though:
The idea of an emboldened opposition creating a "congressional nightmare" in FDR's second term is certainly one view. However, given the flood of New Deal legislation that actually became law, it is unclear exactly to what extent FDR's second term can correctly be characterized as a "congressional nightmare". Most Presidents would wish for such nightmares. Accepting the characterization for the purpose of argument, however, it is not clear that the alleged congressional nightmare was a consequence of an opposition emboldened by victory in the court packing vote. In the alternative, the newfound backbone in a previously supine Congress may have come with the grim realization in Congress that the Supreme Court, after the resignation of Justice Willis Van Devanter on June 2, 1937, would no longer be serving as a secure bulwark against New Deal legislation. Therefore, Congress could no longer pass the highly popular New Deal legislation secure in the knowledge that it would eventually fail in the Court. With the obstructionist Court removed as a defense against the New Deal, it became necessary for Congress to take seriously the idea that the legislation it passed might actually become law, as it indeed did. No other prospect, though, better serves to focus the attention of a legislator and show a bit of backbone to the resistance.
Notice the similarities in John Edwards message about standing up to the entrenched interests who killed UHC in the 90’s by showing a little backbone. This idea is not new; it’s how most progress in our nation was achieved, like it or not. John Edwards has fought a lot of these same battles one by one through 20 years fighting corporations who want to keep the public oppressed so they can profit off of our misery. John Edwards has a firm grasp of history and how to we achieved certain pinnacles of our time, and very few of those were achieved by making a pact with people who have the same philosophy of the Four Horsemen, who were aptly named, for we would have no SS, if they were capitulated to. How do you think they got the name? Do you want to make a deal with the new Four Horsemen or Robber Barons to somehow achieve UHC?
I don’t think it’s realistic and like John Edwards, I think it is a fantasy. We must fight to achieve progress. I believe the bold statement sums up beautifully why revisionist historians for Obama are wrong, especially on why we should supposedly jump ship on the most progressive candidate in the race. John Edwards may not win the battle for the Democratic nomination, but by bringing a resonant populist message forth and forcing all contenders to follow suite, he will hopefully also win the war for all of us who will support him till the end like me.
The New Deal was fought for and passed by a fighter named Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A new Square Deal like his cousin will be pushed for and fought for by a fighter named John Reid Edwards. I will stand with him all the way.
There’s so much to cover. Until "Partisanship Was Never the Problem Pt 3."
Bye and thanks for reading.