With Control of Congress, Democrats Weigh Expanding the Supreme Court From 9 to 13 Justices

Posted Friday, November 6, 2026 12:28 pm

David Hucks (via MyrtleBeachSC)

Nov 6, 2026 · @ https://x.com/myrtlebeachnews

Tuesday’s midterms handed Democrats something they haven’t had since Republicans took the Senate in 2024: control of both chambers of Congress. The party flipped at least seven Senate seats — including South Carolina’s, held for nearly a quarter-century by the late Lindsey Graham — along with Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine and North Carolina. In the House, Democrats were projected to clear 250 seats, far past the 218 needed for a majority.

With that power comes an old, explosive question: will Democrats try to remake the U.S. Supreme Court? CBS News reported Friday that the newly empowered majority could revive a menu of court-reform bills that went nowhere under GOP control — ethics rules, term limits, and adding seats to the bench [CBS News, 2026]. Of those, Expanding the Supreme Court is the idea that draws the most heat. It is also the hardest to pass. Here’s what’s actually on the table, who supports it, and why the math matters more than the rhetoric.

The Debate Around Expanding the Supreme Court

What Democrats Are Actually Proposing

The expansion plan isn’t new. In April 2021, Sen. Ed Markey and Reps. Jerry Nadler, Hank Johnson and Mondaire Jones introduced the Judiciary Act, which would have grown the court from nine justices to 13 [Axios, 2021]. Democrats reintroduced a version in 2023 [Democracy Docket, 2023], and Rep. Al Green of Texas filed his own nine-to-13 bill this year [CBS News, 2026].

The stated rationale is structural: there are 13 federal appellate circuits, so supporters argue there should be 13 justices [Senate Judiciary Committee, 2026]. The practical effect, of course, would be to let a Democratic president appoint four new justices and turn today’s 6-3 conservative majority into a 7-6 liberal one [Washington Times, 2024].

Expansion, however, is only one plank. Ahead of the midterms, Democrats also floated 18-year term limits, an enforceable ethics code, and new standards for the court’s emergency or “shadow” docket [Washington Post, 2026]. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s term-limit bill would give each president two appointments per term, with only the nine most recent justices hearing most appeals [TIME, 2026].

That range matters. Much of the national coverage treats “court reform” and “court packing” as the same thing. They aren’t, and as the sections below show, the party’s leaders have been far more specific about ethics than about adding seats.

Where Democratic Leaders Stand — and Where They Don’t

The most important voice is Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, expected to become speaker in January. In a letter announcing his bid for the gavel, he pledged to “clean up the mess at the Supreme Court” [CBS News, 2026]. He told NBC’s Meet the Press in August that the court needs “dramatic” reform and that Rep. Jamie Raskin, the likely next House Judiciary chairman, would lead the effort [CBS News, 2026]. Neither man has publicly committed the incoming majority to a specific seat count.

In the Senate, presumptive Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has focused less on new seats and more on confirmations, signaling that his caucus will closely scrutinize President Trump’s judicial picks [Scripps News, 2026].

South Carolinians will recognize one of the loudest expansion supporters. Rep. Jim Clyburn told Meet the Press in late summer that 13 justices would be a “pretty good number,” echoing former Vice President Kamala Harris’s call to match the court to the 13 circuits [Deseret News, 2026].

Still, the party isn’t unified. When House Republicans in September forced a vote on a constitutional amendment to lock the court at nine seats, it failed 211-206 and fell well short of the two-thirds required — but Democrats’ reasons for voting no varied. Some backed expansion; others simply didn’t want Congress to give up its power to set the court’s size, fearing a future Republican majority could exploit a cap [Deseret News, 2026]. Only one Democrat, North Carolina’s Don Davis, crossed over [Deseret News, 2026]. Refusing to rule something out is not the same as committing to do it.

The Math: Filibusters and Vetoes

Even a unified Democratic caucus would face two walls.

The first is the Senate filibuster. Most legislation needs 60 votes to advance, and Democrats are expected to hold roughly 54 to 56 seats [CBS News, 2026]. Expansion would only pass if Democrats changed the rules — exactly the scenario Republicans have warned about for years. Vice President JD Vance argued earlier this year that a future Democratic Senate would scrap the filibuster and expand the court, which is why he and Trump pushed Senate Majority Leader John Thune to end it first. Thune and other GOP senators resisted, warning the change would hand Democrats that very power [Dallas Express, 2026].

The second wall is President Trump. Before the election, he said he would veto every bill a Democratic Congress sends him — “Veto, veto, veto,” in his words [Korea Herald, 2026]. Overriding a veto takes two-thirds of both chambers, a margin Democrats did not win [Korea Herald, 2026].

Put plainly: no expansion bill becomes law before January 2029 unless Republicans cross over in large numbers. That’s why some progressive advocates frame the next two years as a period for building the case — winning over voters and holdout lawmakers — so the party is ready if it wins the White House in 2028 [Balls and Strikes, 2026]. Any headline promising a 13-member court soon is getting ahead of the calendar.

History and the Case Against

The Constitution doesn’t set the number of justices. Congress has changed it six times, from as few as six to as many as 10, and the court has held at nine since 1869 [CBS News, 2026]. The most famous attempt to change it — Franklin Roosevelt’s 1937 plan to add justices friendly to the New Deal — was voted down by a Senate his own party controlled [WTVR, 2021].

Republicans argue that history is the warning. In a June floor speech, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley accused Democrats of trying to rig the court because they dislike its rulings, and noted that adding circuits hasn’t been a reason to add justices in nearly a century [Senate Judiciary Committee, 2026]. Critics on both sides also raise a retaliation problem: whatever a Democratic majority adds, a future Republican majority could add right back. Even the late liberal Justice Stephen Breyer cautioned in 2021 that politically driven changes could erode public trust in the court [Axios, 2021].

Public opinion helps explain why Democratic leaders talk more about ethics and term limits. A Marquette Law School poll this spring found broad, cross-party support for term limits — 87% of Democrats, 71% of independents and 73% of Republicans. Expansion, by contrast, split along party lines: 62% of Democrats favored it, while 61% of Republicans opposed it [Washington Times, 2026]. For a party that just won seats in Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina, that gap is hard to ignore.

The Lever Democrats Can Use Right Now

The court-reform debate may matter less in the next two years than a power Democrats already have: the Senate confirms every Supreme Court nominee [Scripps News, 2026].

The court’s two oldest justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, are both conservatives. Alito said in October he would stay through the current term even if Democrats won the Senate [Bloomberg Law, 2026]. Schumer, meanwhile, has said Democrats will not confirm a “right-winger” nominee [The Hill, 2026]. That raises the possibility of a long vacancy if a seat opens before Trump leaves office — a mirror image of Republicans holding Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat open in 2016 [The Hill, 2026].

In other words, the new majority’s most realistic way to shape the court in 2027-28 is not adding seats but deciding who fills the ones that already exist.

What’s Next

The new Congress is sworn in January 3, 2027 [Mappr, 2026]. Between now and then — and in the months after — here’s what to watch:

The speaker vote and committee chairs. If Jeffries wins the gavel and Raskin takes over House Judiciary, expect hearings on court ethics and term limits early. Whether an expansion bill gets a committee vote is the real test of intent.
Senate rules. Any serious move on expansion runs through the filibuster. Watch whether Schumer’s caucus — including newly elected members from red states like South Carolina — shows any appetite for changing it.
Retirements. A vacancy would shift the fight from structure to confirmation overnight.
2028. Because of the veto, expansion is effectively a presidential-campaign issue. Expect candidates to be asked where they stand.

For Grand Strand readers, the local stakes are direct: South Carolina will soon send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate for the first time since Fritz Hollings, and its senior House Democrat is on record backing a 13-member court. Whatever Washington decides about the Supreme Court, Palmetto State lawmakers will have a vote in it.