William E. Forbath, University of Texas at Austin School of Law, and Joseph Fishkin, UCLA Law School, have posted Anti-Oligarchy, Anti-Authoritarianism, The Constitution, and the Court:
In the 1930s, like today, our nation faced a crisis of oligarchy: too much wealth and political power concentrated in too few hands. Like today's liberals and progressives, the New Dealers aimed to enact social and economic reforms that would ensure a much broader distribution of wealth and power, but they faced a hostile, right-wing Supreme Court that would certainly thwart such reforms. Thus, like liberals and progressives today, New Dealers proposed various measures aimed at curbing judicial review to safeguard the legislative reforms they saw as essential to making democracy work. Yet at the same time they hoped to preserve the Court's power-which they hoped the Court would exercise-to defend civil liberties, protect vulnerable minorities against state violence, and safeguard the rule of law in a moment of rising authoritarianism.
--Dan Ernst