226 a short history of the united states
of the NIRA in the case Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States. The
court declared that Congress had improperly delegated power to pri-
vate industry and interfered in businesses engaged in intrastate activi-
ties; and that Congress had also delegated legislative authority to the
executive that was unwarranted by the Constitution. The following
January, in United States v. Butler, the court declared unconstitutional
the Agricultural Adjustment Act that authorized payment to farmers
to keep land out of production, because this law invaded state power
over intrastate commerce. Then in May 1936 , in the bituminous coal
case, the court invalidated the Coal Conservation Act, declaring that
coal mining was a local activity. The Supreme Court had effectively
paralyzed the ability of the President and Congress to deal with the
depression. In some of these cases the decision resulted from a bare
majority, and critics accused the court of attempting to legislate by ju-
dicial decree.
Critics insisted that the Supreme Court had to be curbed by remov-
ing its right of judicial review, or by requiring unanimity to declare a
law unconstitutional, or by allowing Congress to override a court rul-
ing with a two-thirds vote, the same procedure and authority it had in
overriding a presidential veto.
Matters came to a head when Roo sevelt won another landslide vic-
tory in the presidential contest of 1936 over the Republican Alfred M.
Landon of Kansas. During the convention the Democrats abolished
the traditional two-thirds vote necessary for nomination—which had
been the rule since the fi rst Democratic convention in 1832 —and re-
placed it with a simple majority. In his ac ceptance speech Roo sevelt
decried the new “despotism wrapped in the robes of legal sanction.”
The Republican platform denounced the New Deal as a gross violation
of the Constitution and accused Roosevelt of usurping the powers of
Congress.
But FDR’s extraordinary popularity with the electorate won him
60. 4 percent of the pop ular vote and every state in the Union except
Maine and Vermont. He carried with him a great number of Demo-
crats running for federal and state offices. In the House of Represen-
tatives there was an overwhelming majority of 333 seats, compared to
89 for Republicans; in the Senate the count was 76 to 16. Encouraged
by this strong show of support, Roo sevelt unwisely decided to remake