Nothing's Impossible

Most Americans supported Roosevelt and the Democrats as they experimented with new solutions to the problems of the depression. They elected Democrats to a large majority in Congress in nineteen thirty-four. Two years later, they re-elected Franklin Roosevelt to a second term in the White House by one of the largest victories in American history.
Roosevelt's big victory made him stronger than ever. So he decided to fight the part of the government that had been blocking many of his programs -- the Supreme Court.
Most of the nine judges on the Supreme Court in nineteen thirty-six were conservative. They had ruled that many of Roosevelt's most important New Deal programs were illegal. Now the judges were preparing to decide the future of programs to help old people, labor unions, and others. And there was nothing the president could do under the American system of government.
So Roosevelt called for changes in the system. He asked Congress to reorganize the federal judicial system. And he asked for the power to add several new members to the Supreme Court. In this way, Roosevelt hoped to gain a new majority on the court that would support his views.