Democrats are putting Supreme Court changes back on Washington’s agenda, with party leaders discussing term limits, ethics rules and adding four seats after the midterms.
Some Democrats are preparing to make a Supreme Court overhaul a priority if they regain power in Washington, Fox Baltimore reported. The proposals range from term limits and ethics rules to adding seats or abolishing the Court entirely.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has declined to rule out any option. Former Vice President Kamala Harris has gone further, calling for renewed debate over expanding the Supreme Court from nine justices to 13.
“Dramatic Supreme Court reform is necessary... there's a variety of different options that are on the table and I think that we can't foreclose any single one of them,” Jeffries said in August.
Harris offered a specific number in July. “We need to revisit the point of expanding the Court to 13 justices like we have 13 district courts,” she said.
That is more than a debate over judicial rules. Adding four seats would give a future president and Senate an immediate chance to change the Court’s balance through new appointments.
Jeffries framed the current Court as a partisan institution. He called its conservative majority “basically a subsidiary of the MAGA Republican Party,” tying his reform push to Democratic anger over decisions involving abortion and redistricting.
Those disputes continue to place the Court near the center of national politics. Readers following that fight can also see our coverage of the Missouri redistricting appeal.
Several bills concerning term limits and an ethics code have already been filed in Congress. Other measures would add seats, while the Democratic Socialists of America has called for abolishing the Supreme Court and ending lifetime appointments.
The proposals do not carry equal risk. Ethics legislation targets judicial conduct. Term limits would change how long justices serve. Court expansion would let elected officials alter the bench’s size during a partisan dispute over its rulings.
That last option has drawn warnings beyond Republican leadership. A bipartisan Supreme Court commission appointed during the Biden administration found broad interest in term limits but remained divided over whether Congress could impose them without changing the Constitution.
The Associated Press quoted the commission’s blunt assessment of adding seats: “The risks of Court expansion are considerable.” The panel said expansion might produce a more diverse bench, but it could also damage the Court’s legitimacy.
The 36-member commission also warned that adding seats could further damage the judicial confirmation process. Members split over whether expansion was wise, and the panel was not expected to issue final reform recommendations.
National Review reported that the commission viewed expansion as a possible partisan maneuver. It warned that the move could lead to more bitter confirmation fights or retaliation by a future Senate.
Washington University law professor Daniel Epps raised the same basic danger in 2019. He argued that one party’s expansion could invite the other party to add more seats when power changes hands.
“I think there's good reason to think that expanding the court is likely to put the court in kind of a death spiral, where there would be a significant loss of legitimacy on the right; we'd see lots of states, I think, refusing to respect the court's authority. And ultimately, a real challenge for the rule of law. And quite likely, you'd see an attempt to pack back the next time the Republicans are in power,”
The warning goes to the heart of the problem. If nine seats become 13 because one party dislikes the Court’s direction, the next majority would face pressure to answer with 15 or 17.
The Court’s authority matters most when political stakes are high. Its election docket, including disputes such as the Trump administration’s USPS mail-ballot appeal, shows why both parties care so much about who sits on the bench.
Republicans have tried to block expansion through a constitutional amendment fixing the number of justices at nine. The House voted on such a resolution, but it fell well short of the two-thirds majority required for passage.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans would oppose the Democratic push. He accused the Democratic Socialists of America and its allies of seeking to “pack the US Supreme Court” and vowed, “We're going to make sure that doesn't happen.”
Even if Democrats regain part of Washington after the midterms, the arithmetic remains difficult. They would likely need an overwhelming Senate majority or would have to end the filibuster, the rule that usually requires 60 votes to advance major legislation.
A Republican president would also almost certainly veto the proposals. That means control of the House alone would not be enough to enact the broad changes now under discussion.
The Court’s role reaches well beyond election cases. Recent disputes have also included the White House ballroom case, another reminder that closely divided rulings can carry direct political consequences.
Former President Joe Biden backed term limits while in office but stopped short of supporting expansion, the account of the current Democratic debate stated. An earlier Associated Press account quoted Biden answering “No” when asked whether he supported Supreme Court term limits, showing that Democratic positions have shifted across different stages of the debate.
A July Fox News poll put the Supreme Court’s favorability at 38%. That was down from 41% one year earlier and 20 points below its 2017 high of 58%.
Democratic approval stood at just 17%, which helps explain why party leaders see political room for structural change. But dissatisfaction with rulings does not settle which reforms Congress should pursue or what those changes would do to the Court.
The stakes also surface in fights over executive power, including litigation surrounding Trump’s mail-voting executive order. Each major ruling gives the losing side another reason to focus on the Court’s membership.
Term limits and binding ethics rules can be debated on their own terms. Adding seats in response to unwanted decisions creates a different precedent: political control could determine the Court’s size.
That would turn every change of power into another fight over the bench. Constitutional order requires restraint most when elected leaders dislike the result.