Some Democrats pitch Supreme Court reform if they regain power in Washington

Democrats are preparing for the possibility of regaining at least some power in Washington after the midterms, and as they look to win back the House, the Senate, or both, some within the party are already pitching Supreme Court reform as a top priority. "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," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in August. "The Supreme Court, the conservative right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has become, you know, basically a subsidiary of the MAGA Republican Party." Democrats are preparing for the possibility of regaining at least some power in Washington after the midterms, and as they look to win back the House, the Senate, or both, some within the party are already pitching Supreme Court reform as a top priority. The proposals span a wide range. The Democratic Socialists of America have called for abolishing the Supreme Court entirely, while DSA-aligned candidates have pushed more narrowly for ending lifetime appointments. Public opinion of the court has soured considerably. A Fox News poll from July found the court's favorability at just 38%, down from 41% a year earlier and 20 points below a high of 58% in 2017. Only 17% of Democrats approved of the court in that poll, reflecting frustration over a string of decisions — on issues from abortion to redistricting — that broke against liberal policy positions as the court's makeup grew more conservative. Several bills have already been filed in Congress focused on imposing term limits for justices and establishing a code of ethics, while others have pushed to add seats to the bench. "We need to revisit the point of expanding the Court to 13 justices like we have 13 district courts," former Vice President Kamala Harris said in July. Republicans have pushed back forcefully on the idea of expansion. A House vote last week on a Republican resolution attempting to codify 9 justices on the bench through a constitutional amendment fell well short of the 2/3rds needed to pass it. 'You've heard the Democratic Socialists of America, the Communist Socialists, and the Democratic Party who are taking the party over. They published their platform. You know, they want to abolish the border. They want to abolish prisons, defund police. One of their objectives, among all the crazy things, is they want to pack the US Supreme Court. We're going to make sure that doesn't happen," House Speaker Mike Johnson said ahead of the vote that ultimately failed. Even some legal scholars who might be sympathetic to Democratic concerns have warned against expansion. Washington University law professor Daniel Epps wrote in 2019 that growing the size of the court could deepen its politicization, setting off a theoretical, never-ending partisan tit-for-tat depending on which party holds power. "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," Epps said. Former President Joe Biden advocated for term limits during his time in office but stopped short of backing court expansion. Any of these proposals would face steep odds of passage — Democrats would likely need to win the Senate by an overwhelming margin, or eliminate the filibuster, to move legislation through. Even then, a Republican president would almost certainly veto it. Page 2