While rifling through the papers of various Justices at the Library of Congress, I discovered two other interesting tidbits about the Court in addition to information about the Supreme Court Building I posted on Friday, see here. Because these tidbits are for true Supreme Court junkies and I want to keep Tom’s piece about possible Supreme Court nominees toward the top of the blog, most of this post can be viewed after the jump.
First, in the early 1900s and at least as late as 1940, the Justices used to send proof opinions to one another through courier. Rather than concurring or noting their agreement by separate cover, the Justices would express their opinions on the back of the final page of the draft, and mark any proposed changes on the proof opinion itself. The tradition was one that began before the Supreme Court Building was built in the 1930s, but continued even after the Justices found themselves working in the same building. An example of such a note, which I found in the papers of Charles Evans Hughes can be viewed here.
Second, and perhaps more interesting, I asked the following seemingly odd question in the title of this post: what do Rush Limbaugh and FDR’s Court-packing plan have in common? Again, in the papers of Charles Evans Hughes, I made a fascinating discovery of a letter written by Rush Limbaugh’s grandfather, Rush Limbaugh, Sr., a noted Missouri jurist and attorney, to Chief Justice Hughes regarding his opposition to FDR’s court-packing plan. Apparently, like his grandson, it appears that Rush Limbaugh, Sr., was a noted conservative and quite politically active even with respect to national issues. The letter can be found here, but unfortunately I could not find the cartoon that Mr. Limbaugh attached to the letter.
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