Clyburn calls for expanding Supreme Court, says ’13 is a pretty good number’

Sen. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Sunday called for an expansion of the Supreme Court’s nine justices to 13, calling that increase a “pretty good number.”

“Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker asked Clyburn if he agreed with former Vice President Kamala Harris’s request for court expansion in an interview.

“Yes, I do,” the South Carolina Democrat said. “I think we are in a position now that calls for some significant actions taken by the Congress and we ought to expand, and 13 is a pretty good number. A baker’s dozen, it would be a good number to have on the court.”

Clyburn said the high court “has decided to reverse course and take this country back to those rulings of Justice Taney, that said, ‘No Black man has any right that white man must respect,'” referring to Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case in 1857.

“I had hoped that Clarence Thomas would follow the modern underpinnings of that Constitution of ours, but he has not done so,” Clyburn continued, referring to the justice nominated by former President George H. W. Bush. “In fact, he decided to go all the way from an angry leftist to a very angry rightist.”

Clyburn — who voted in favor of Thomas’s confirmation in 1991 and called him “my good friend” at the time while Clyburn served in the House — said he “absolutely” does not stand by the case he made for Thomas to be on the court.

“I had no idea that Clarence Thomas would rebel, the way he has, against his own background and experiences,” the senator said.

Other Democratic lawmakers have called for expanding the high court, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). She wrote an op-ed for The Boston Globe in 2021 saying she did not “come to this conclusion lightly,” as she said she believed the “current court threatens the democratic foundations of our nation.”

Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), have attempted to expand the conservative-majority court through legislation without success.

After his failed reelection attempt in 2024, former President Biden called for term limits in addition to a binding code of ethics and a constitutional amendment to counteract the justices’ recent presidential immunity decision, after long resisting calls to change the court makeup.

Republicans have long opposed expanding the Supreme Court, accusing Democrats of attempting to “pack the court.”