Legal historian Laura Kalman, author of FDR’s Gambit: The Court Packing Fight and the Rise of Legal Liberalism; Ken Kersch, professor of political science at Boston College; and Jeff Shesol, author of Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court, discuss Franklin D. Roosevelt’s constitutional legacy, the court-packing fight, and how his Supreme Court appointees transformed America. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.
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Laura Kalman is distinguished research professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is also a member of the California Bar, and past president of the American Society for Legal History. Kalman is the author of several books, the most recent of which is FDR’s Gambit: The Court Packing Fight and the Rise of Legal Liberalism.
Ken Kersch is professor of political science at Boston College. He is the author of five books, including Conservatives and the Constitution: Imagining Constitutional Restoration in the Heyday of American Liberalism, The Supreme Court and American Political Development, and his most recent book, American Political Thought: An Invitation. Kersch is also a contributor to “The Gilded Age through the New Deal” section of the National Constitution Center’s Founders’ Library.
Jeff Shesol is a founding partner of West Wing Writers and former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton. He is the author of Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade; Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court; and most recently Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War. Shesol has also taught presidential history at Princeton University, where he was the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Laura Kalman, FDR’s Gambit: The Court Packing Fight and the Rise of Legal Liberalism
- Laura Kalman, The Strange Case of Legal Liberalism
- Ken Kersch, The Claremont Review of Books, “All Sail, No Anchor”
- Ken Kersch, Constructing Civil Liberties: Discontinuities in the Development of American Constitutional Law
- Ronald Kahn and Ken Kersch, The Supreme Court and American Political Development
- Jeff Shesol, The New York Times, “The Supreme Court is Broken. Where’s Biden?”
- Jeff Shesol, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs the Supreme Court
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address (1933)
- National Constitution Center, The Founders’ Library, “Franklin D. Roosevelt: Address on Constitution Day (1937)”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, State of the Union Address (1941)
- Colgate v. Harvey (1935)
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat on Court-Packing (1937)
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