Gingrich follows FDR with court-packing scheme

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s idea for checking judicial activism is a textbook case of historical revisionism that is strikingly similar to the court-packing scheme of liberal icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Gingrich says Congress should just pass a law eliminating specific judgeships, presumably immediately ousting the activist judges currently filling those seats.

Gingrich lionizes an incident now regarded as profoundly troubling by constitutional scholars. When Thomas Jefferson replaced John Adams as president in 1801, the outgoing Congress created new federal courts and judgeships, which Adams promptly filled. The new Congress repealed the law and the judges were ousted.