VIDEO: Supreme Power-Franklin Roosevelt and the Supreme Court

Jeff Shesol is the author of “Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt and the Supreme Court.”

Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court
About the Program
Jeff Shesol recalls Franklin Roosevelt's confrontation with the U.S. Supreme Court who objected to vital elements of his New Deal legislation. In 1937 the President announced a plan to expand the court to ensure that liberal justices would outnumber conservatives. Mr. Shesol reports that President Roosevelt's plan failed but helped push through New Deal legislation while it created a fissure in the Democratic party that the author maintains led to future Republican ascendance. Jeff Shesol discusses his book with Jeffrey Toobin, staff writer at The New Yorker and senior legal analyst at CNN at the New York Historical Society in New York City.
About the Author
Jeff Shesol
Jeff Shesol is the author of Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade. He is the former deputy chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and is the founding partner of West Wing Writers, a strategic communications firm.
to watch the BookTV presentation aired May 1, 2010, click on
http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11353/Supreme+Power+Franklin+Roosevelt+vs+The+Supreme+Court.aspx

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