When the first Supreme Court of the United States was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, it had six members: one chief justice and five associate justices. In 1801, the lame-duck Federalist Congress reduced the court’s size to five to deny Thomas Jefferson a nomination upon the next vacancy. A year later, the newly installed Jeffersonian Congress restored the sixth seat. Between 1807 and 1837, Congress added three spots on the court in
order to staff three new judicial circuits in the expanding republic. During the Civil War, while momentous wartime cases were pending before the court, the Republican Congress increased the number of justices to 10. In 1866, after Lincoln’s assassination, it reduced the court’s authorized seats to seven so as to deny nominations to Andrew Johnson. Congress restored two of the seats upon the election of Ulysses S. Grant, who nominated new justices on the same day the court issued a consequential decision deeming the Republican paper money system unconstitutional. After the two new members were confirmed, the court reversed that decision. The number of seats on the Supreme Court has remained at nine ever since.
In her new book, FDR’s Gambit: The Court Packing Fight and the Rise of Legal Liberalism, the distinguished historian Laura Kalman has written the best account of the one time in the past century and a half that...
Irvine, CA (PinionNewswire) — Powerful congressional candidate–and complex litigation attorney–Eric J. Troutman is raising concerns about an organization seemingly tricking consumers and voters int...