Key takeaways:
- The proposed amendment needed a two-thirds House majority but failed on a 212-206 vote.
- The resolution would have required the Supreme Court to consist of one chief justice and eight associate justices.
- Democratic leaders opposed the measure, saying Congress has constitutional authority to set the court’s size, which has stood at nine seats since 1869.
The House rejected a Republican-backed constitutional amendment Wednesday that would have permanently limited the Supreme Court to nine justices, blocking a GOP effort to lock in the court’s current size as some Democrats show growing openness to expansion.
The joint resolution failed on a 212-206 vote, well short of the two-thirds majority required to advance a constitutional amendment. All Republicans supported it, along with Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., while all but one Democrat opposed it. Rep. Kevin Kiley, an independent from California who caucuses with Republicans, voted against the measure, NBC News reported.
The proposal, introduced by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., would amend the Constitution to say: “The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices consisting of one chief justice and eight associate justices.”
“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,” Biggs said during House debate.
Amending the Constitution requires approval by two-thirds of both the House and Senate, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the states.
Republicans framed the vote as a stand against court expansion and against positions associated with the Democratic Socialists of America. It came one day after the House adopted a resolution condemning socialism “in all its forms.” The DSA platform calls for replacing the Supreme Court with a “judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday that keeping the court at nine justices is “critically important.”
“Nine justices has worked well,” Johnson said. “If you go down the road of packing the Supreme Court it turns into a political palooza, and it would not serve the country.”
Johnson also told reporters that Republicans would keep the court at nine seats if they remain in charge. “Now you’ve heard the Democrat Socialists of America, the communist socialists and Democrat Party, who are taking the party over,” he said.
Democratic leaders urged members to oppose the amendment, arguing it would give up power the Constitution assigns to Congress. The Constitution does not set the size of the Supreme Court. Congress established six justices in 1789, changed the court’s size several times over the next century and set it at nine seats in 1869.
“This proposed constitutional amendment would permanently fix the number of Supreme Court justices at nine, stripping Congress of yet another constitutional authority that is meant to be controlled by the American people’s representatives,” the office of House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., wrote to lawmakers before the vote.
Clark’s office also said the measure did nothing to address the “affordability crisis” under President Donald Trump. In a separate notice cited by CBS News, Clark said the Republican majority had already surrendered congressional war powers, taxing and tariff powers, and spending powers to Trump and “would now permanently relinquish the power to set the number of Supreme Court Justices.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said Republicans were trying to preserve the current court after recent elections.
“Trump’s followers in Congress now seek to freeze into place the political court that MAGA built, for decades to come,” Raskin said on the House floor. “Thus, they urge us to give away another critical power that the framers vested in us.”
Some Democrats have called for expanding the court. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., endorsed expanding it to 13 seats during an appearance Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
“I think that we are in a position now that calls for some significant actions taken by the Congress, and we ought to expand,” Clyburn said. “Thirteen is a pretty good number. A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the court.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, also said earlier this summer, “We need to revisit the point of expanding the court to 13 justices,” NBC News reported.
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