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Consider also that the number of justices and lifetime appointments are in place to prevent a single administration from being able to "load the bench" completely with justices of one ideology.
Actually, that almost did happen once. The President wanted to increase the number of Justices so as to appoint a few who wouldn't find his sweeping social programs and runaway spending unconstitutional.
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True, but FDR at the height of the great depression was probably about the only president in history who was both popular enough and had enough of a majority in both the House and Senate to do such a thing. Even so, I wonder if he could have actually pulled it off or whether it was just enough of a threat to get SCOTUS to quick bucking him and the New Deal.
I have long thought that FDR's threat of constitutional amendment played a large part in the NFA being allowed to stand in
Miller.