USA14 August, 20262 min read
Democrats Push Supreme Court Overhaul, Including Expanding Justices to 13 and 18-Year Terms
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Expand the Supreme Court from nine to thirteen justices. Reduce justices' terms from life tenure to 18 years.
Plans to reshape the court
Democrats are pushing multiple proposals to overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court, including one bill that would increase the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to 13 and another that would cut their lifetime terms to 18 years.
“One bill proposes increasing the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to 13.”
The Washington Post’s Julian Mark wrote that other plans would create an enforceable ethics code and place standards on how the court rules from its relatively opaque “shadow docket.”
The Washington Post also reported that the proposals are driven by frustration with the court’s rightward turn, even as the court blocked several of President Donald Trump’s key initiatives this past term.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) said in an interview, “There’s constant and building dismay about the increasingly appalling record of the court,” and he added that “the continuing interest in reform springs from continued dismay and concern about the court’s misbehavior.”
Reactions from Democrats and Republicans
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has identified restoring voting rights and reforming the Supreme Court as central pillars of the Democratic Party’s legislative agenda, framing both as matters of democratic legitimacy.
In a separate local interview, WJAR reported that U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said adding more justices would require “60 votes in the United States Senate,” and he added, “I don’t think we would get those votes.”
Reed also told NBC 10 that any effort would require “someone else than Donald Trump to make those appointments,” while still emphasizing that Congress retains the authority to set the number of justices.
The Washington Post quoted Mike Fragoso, a former chief counsel to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), arguing that “The goal is to intimidate the Court into changing the course of decisions. It’s reprehensible.”
What’s at stake next
The Washington Post said Democrats’ anger is fueled by a conviction that rulings are “more about politics than the law,” and it tied the push for reform to decisions that pared back the 1965 Voting Rights Act, loosened campaign finance rules, and increased presidential power. The paper reported that even if Democrats solidly control Congress, proposals would still require 60 votes in the Senate and that eliminating the filibuster is a prerequisite for passage.
“Democrats’ anger is fueled by a conviction that many of these rulings are more about politics than the law.”
It also described how Democrats in 2020 offered a flurry of plans after Trump was able to name three justices thanks to maneuvering by McConnell, but President Joe Biden did not pursue those proposals. In the same reporting, Whitehouse said, “Even in a Congress like this one, where these bills have no chance of passage, it’s really important to file them,” because they “reassure people that there is in fact a mechanism by which the court could be restored to some degree of better order.”