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> The Constitution was abandoned about 90 years ago, when FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court Not really. Threatening to pack the Court may have violated
by anon373839 3y ago
> The Constitution was abandoned about 90 years ago, when FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court
Not really. Threatening to pack the Court may have violated custom, but did not violate the Constitution itself, since Congress has the power to set the number of justices.
This actually highlights the more fundamental problem: the constitution is structurally imperfect and, really, is totally inert without accompanying norms and customs to make it mean something.
Unfortunately, the debate about what those norms and customs should be and how they should be developed and enforced is spoiled by philosophical and tribal gulfs that seemingly cannot be bridged.
- rayiner 3y ago> Threatening to pack the Court may have violated custom, but did not violate the Constitution itself, since Congress has the power to set the number of justices. The threat of court packing didn’t destroy the constitution. It was the Supreme Court decisions made under the threat of court packing.
- pauldenton 3y agoThe landmark being Wickard v. Filburn which established that grain you grew on your own property and sold to no one, using it to feed his family and animals actually fell within the Commerce Clause because if he didn't grow that wheat he would have bought it in a store, and the wheat in that store would have likely crossed state lines, so wheat he grows on his own property that never leaves his property nor is sold is actually interstate commerce
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- anon373839 3y agoWickard is especially shameless, but let’s not pretend the Supreme Court was some temple of reason and truth that FDR defiled. Morehead v. New York enforced a libertarian agenda using the same squishy “substantive due process” that underlay both Dred Scott and Roe.