Final answer:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a plan to add more justices to the Supreme Court in 1937, known as the "Supreme Court Packing Plan". The plan aimed to increase the number of justices on the court from nine to fifteen by adding one justice for every sitting justice over the age of seventy.
Step-by-step explanation:
The subject of the question is History. Specifically, it refers to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan to add more justices to the Supreme Court in 1937, known as the "Supreme Court Packing Plan". Roosevelt proposed to add one justice for every sitting justice over the age of seventy, with the intention of increasing the number of justices on the court from nine to fifteen.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, after his 1936 re-election, attempted to expand the Supreme Court by adding a justice for each member over the age of seventy, which could have increased the court size to 15. The plan, designed to support his New Deal policies, faced significant opposition and ultimately failed. The Supreme Court's number of justices, set at nine since 1869, has historically been subject to intense political debates.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Supreme Court Packing Plan
The idea to add more justices to the Supreme Court often relates to controversial moments in U.S. history. One such instance was during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's tenure. Frustrated by the Supreme Court's invalidation of several New Deal measures, Roosevelt proposed what came to be known as the Supreme Court Packing Plan following his re-election in 1936. He sought to expand the number of justices by adding an additional justice for each current justice over the age of seventy who did not retire, potentially increasing the number from nine to fifteen. The plan was part of Roosevelt's strategy to create a Supreme Court more amenable to his New Deal legislation. Despite his considerable political influence at the time, the plan met with strong opposition from Congress, the public, and members of his own party, and it ultimately failed.
Historically, the number of justices on the Supreme Court has varied, with Congress setting the current number at nine in 1869. All nine justices serve lifetime appointments, which mean they serve until they choose to retire or pass away, unless they are impeached. Roosevelt's court-packing effort was not without legacy, however, as it is widely thought to have influenced the Court's decisions after the controversy died down, with the justices taking a more favorable stance towards subsequent New Deal legislation.