Remember: No Phony Democrats!

[Klaralven]

75. Lots of Democrats also opposed FDR's court packing plan -- Nothing new about that

Court-packing proposal and death (of Joseph T Robinson, Senate Majority Leader, D-AK)

In 1937, Robinson supported Roosevelt's proposal to restructure the United States Supreme Court (the "court-packing plan" ).[3] This support may have occurred in part due to Roosevelt promising Robinson the next appointment to the Supreme Court.[8] Robinson had a much more difficult time with the president's Court Reorganization Act, designed to add liberal justices to the Supreme Court.[3] For weeks in 1937, he spoke, fought, and cajoled for the bill, but he could not stifle the criticism of scores of Republicans and Democrats.[3] The constant strain showed on his face and in the stoop of his shoulders, and his friends began to worry about his health.[3]

On July 14, just as the legislation seemed likely to split his party into two warring factions, Robinson's housekeeper found his pajama-clad body lying face down on the floor of his apartment in the United Methodist building on Maryland Ave, NE.[3] He died of heart failure.[3] Two days after Robinson's sudden death, stunned colleagues, friends, and family attended his funeral in the Senate chamber.[3] His casket, blanketed with flowers, rested in the green-carpeted pit, the site of his greatest speeches.[3] The Senate chaplain gave a brief sermon, and the Capitol Police escorted his body to a funeral train headed to Little Rock.[3] Thousands of mourners traveled to the Arkansas capitol to witness Robinson's lying-in-state ceremony and to express their grief and their enormous admiration for the majority leader: the "fightingest" man in the U.S. Senate.[3]

He is buried at the Roselawn Cemetery in Little Rock, Arkansas. His home in Little Rock, the Joseph Taylor Robinson House, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1994.