Jeff Shesol: Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt Vs the Supreme Court April 7, 2011

In 1937, with nearly all of his New Deal being overturned by the Supreme Court, FDR proposed a law giving the President the power to appoint an additional Justice for every sitting one over the age of 70. The legislation created an absolute uproar and was defeated, giving FDR the greatest setback of his political life. Then, nearly simultaneously, the voting majority of the Court changed and FDR's domestic agenda seemed no longer to be at risk. A founding partner of West Wing Writers, a speechwriting and strategy firm, Shesol is also the author of 'Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud That Defined a Decade.' He has been a speechwriter for President Clinton, Rhodes Scholar, cartoonist as a Brown undergraduate and Fellow in American Studies at Princeton; he lives in Washington, D.C. 'Supreme Power' has been named a New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year,' and a New Yorker Magazine 'Reviewers Favorite Book of 2010.'