House Democrats killed a constitutional amendment to lock the Supreme Court at nine justices Wednesday, keeping court-packing alive as their backup plan the next time they win a majority.
The 212-206 vote fell far short of the two-thirds threshold needed to advance a constitutional amendment. Only one Democrat — Rep. Don Davis of North Carolina — crossed the aisle. Every other Democrat voted no, preserving Congress's power to expand the court by statute whenever it chooses.
Rep. Andy Biggs, the Arizona Republican who sponsored the amendment, argued the court cannot function as an independent check on government if the majority can just add justices every time it dislikes a ruling. "Once you go down that road, the court stops being an independent check on government power. It becomes another political institution controlled by whoever happens to hold the majority," Biggs said on the House floor, according to Fox News.
House Democratic leadership urged members to vote no. House Whip Katherine Clark's office circulated a notice calling the amendment a Republican scheme to "permanently relinquish the power to set the number of Supreme Court Justices, given to Congress in Article I of the Constitution," as CBS News reported. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, dismissed nine as a "suddenly magic number" and accused Republicans of wanting to "freeze into place the political court that MAGA built," according to CBS and Fox News.
What Democrats call a constitutional prerogative, Republicans call a loaded weapon. And prominent Democrats are already pointing it at the court. Former Vice President Kamala Harris said in July that the court should be expanded to 13 justices — one for each federal circuit. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina made the same case Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," saying "a baker's dozen would be a good number," as the New York Post reported.
The Democratic Socialists of America go further. Their platform calls for replacing the Supreme Court entirely with a judiciary "chosen by and subordinate to Congress" — a position Republicans have hammered in the run-up to the midterms. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters the vote would make Democrats "put their money where their mouth is," per the New York Post.
NBC News framed the vote as part of a Republican messaging strategy ahead of the 2026 midterms, noting that court expansion "has migrated from the far left to the Democratic mainstream" in recent years. CBS likewise emphasized the political context. Fox and the New York Post centered the story on Democrats keeping the packing option open.
The court has sat at nine justices since 1869. Congress changed the number seven times before that. The Constitution never fixed a number — it left that to the legislature. The question now is whether that flexibility survives the next time one party controls the White House and both chambers of Congress.
The amendment is dead for now. The idea of a 13-justice court is not.
