House Democrats on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted against a constitutional amendment to set the number of Supreme Court justices at nine.
Republicans said the measure was needed to prevent a potential future Democratic majority from packing the Supreme Court with liberal justices. Democrats argued against Congress giving up its constitutional power to determine the composition of the Court.
The measure failed 212-206, short of the two-thirds majority needed to approve a constitutional amendment.
Only one Democrat, Rep. Don Davis of North Carolina, voted for it. Independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, a former Republican, joined other Democrats in opposition.
Rep. Andy Biggs, Arizona Republican, authored the constitutional amendment, which received unanimous support from his fellow House GOP lawmakers.
“It fixes the number of justices at nine permanently — not because nine is a magic number, but because a fixed court cannot be expanded by whoever happens to win the next election,” Mr. Biggs said. “It makes the rule the same regardless of who is in power.”
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said the proposal undermines the founders’ intent, as they gave Congress the power under Article III of the Constitution to define the composition of the Supreme Court.
He said Congress first set the number of Supreme Court justices at six in 1789 and changed the number seven additional times, ranging from five to 10 justices.
“MAGA’s proposal is to strip Congress of all authority in the matter to freeze it and cement it permanently in the constitutional architecture for all time with the suddenly magic number nine,” Mr. Raskin said.
Mr. Biggs said the high court has been composed of nine justices since 1869 — more than half the time the U.S. has existed — and codifying that with a constitutional amendment would not prevent a future change via the same mechanism.
Both parties accused each other of political motives.
Republicans pointed to Democratic legislation that would expand the Supreme Court to 13 justices. The measure has not been reintroduced this Congress but 66 Democrats had signed onto the 2023 version.
“They want to take the Court from a six-three conservative majority Court to a seven-six liberal Court. It’s all planned,” said House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican.
Mr. Raskin, who was a co-sponsor of the 2023 bill, said 13 was designed to match the number of Supreme Court justices to the number of federal judicial circuits. Some of the previous congressional changes to the composition of the Court were to align the two, he said.
Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson, the top Democrat on the Judiciary subcommittee that oversees U.S. courts, said it is Republicans who undertook “a decades-long crusade” to pack the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts as well.
“Wealthy donors and corporate interests, led by the Federalist Society, spent billions of dollars to pack the judiciary with right-wing, conservative, corporate-polluting, serving judges and justices,” he said.
Mr. Johnson added: “They have already delegitimized our judiciary, yet they now stand before the American people, pretending to be guardians of judicial integrity.”
In response, Mr. Biggs shared some statistics from the Supreme Court’s last term indicating that the partisanship argument is overblown: 50% of the cases were decided unanimously, and only five of 57 cases, just 8%, were decided by a 6-3 conservative majority.
“That doesn’t sound like packing,” he said. “That sounds like a lot of thoughtful folks on the United States Supreme Court rendering decisions they believe in and they believe comprise constitutional opinion.”
Republicans said Democrats have made no secret of their desire to pack the Supreme Court because they are unhappy with its current conservative ideological majority.
“Once politicians start changing the size of the Court to get favorable rulings, there is no logical stopping point,” said South Carolina GOP Rep. Ralph Norman. “Today is 13. Tomorrow could be 17. Then 21. That would turn the Supreme Court into just another political arm of Congress.”
Democrats said they do not want to handicap Congress’ ability to overhaul the Supreme Court because their constituents are demanding change.
“Those calls have grown louder in the wake of each decision that has lessened our individual rights and liberties,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, Pennsylvania Democrat.
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