The Senate buried FDR’s judicial reform proposal in committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s report, released on June 14, 1937, denounced the measure as a “needless, futile and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle.”

The outcome of the Court fight was FDR’s greatest legislative defeat. But it became apparent that while he lost the battle, he won the war. During 1937, one conservative justice switched allegiances and began supporting New Deal legislation. This switch— and later Court retirements— let FDR shape a pro-New Deal majority without radical change. From 1937 until the 1990s the Court consistently supported a broad reading of Federal power in the economy.