Court Ghosts: And You Thought Obama Had It Tough

The 1936 Republican presidential candidate, Alf Landon, based his bid to defeat FDR on repealing Social Security. In a campaign speech Landon promised: “We must repeal. The Republican Party is pledged to do this.” That year’s election night tally revealed who was in touch with Americans and who wasn’t. FDR: 523 electoral votes; Landon: 8 electoral votes.

And another crazy coincidence. In 1937, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Owen ROBERTS switched his vote and found the Washington state minimum wage constitutional (from an earlier N.Y. case in which the high court had found the minimum wage unconstitutional).

Two weeks later, the Supreme Court found  the National Labor Relations Act constitutional. Two days after that a U.S. Appeals Court ruled that Social Security was unconstitutional. Six weeks later, the Supreme Court found it constitutional.