Democrats block proposed constitutional amendment to keep Supreme Court justices to nine

A Republican proposal to amend the Constitution to prevent expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court failed on the House floor.

Like all constitutional amendments, the measure needed a two-thirds majority of the House to pass, which it did not get: The vote was along party lines at 212-206. Democrats have never supported such an amendment, so it will be easy fodder for Republicans to accuse Democrats of looking to “pack the court” with favorable liberal justices.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-N.C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he wasn’t surprised the vote was along party lines, even though Democrats, in his view, knew there would be “political risk” to voting no.

“Democrats are very clear. They want to pack the court,” Knott said. “We want to maintain the normalcy and stick with the process that we’ve done for a long time.”

The Republican campaign arm wasted no time spinning the vote into midterm messaging. Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which helps support and elect Republican candidates, wrote in a statement released minutes after the vote that Democrats voted against the amendment “so they can follow through on a radical socialist agenda.”

“Give House Democrats an ounce of power, and they’ll use every bit of it to fundamentally transform America into an unrecognizable socialist hellscape,” Marinella said.

The Supreme Court issue is red meat for Republicans, who have been against “court packing” since the days of former President Franklin Roosevelt and are eager to jump on any controversial Democratic ideas as midterm ammo.

Democrats have floated the idea of adding justices to the court for years, especially when the current justices have ruled in favor of the Trump administration.

Most Democrats, including top leaders, dismissed the resolution, which was sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), as a campaign stunt designed solely to animate conservatives ahead of the midterms. They’re confident that voters will care more about the cost of living, which has risen under Trump’s second term, when they go to the polls.

“This is such a fake issue that Republicans are putting on,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), chair of the House Democratic Caucus, told reporters this week. “I understand why they’re putting it on, [but] the American public aren’t asking about this.”

Aguilar said he traveled extensively over the long summer break and heard no concerns about the Supreme Court issue.

“Nowhere ever are people saying, ‘You know what we should do? We should cap the number of Supreme Court justices,’” he said.