On Wednesday, House Democrats did exactly what everyone expected: they overwhelmingly voted down a Republican-backed constitutional amendment that would have permanently capped the Supreme Court at nine justices. The vote failed 212-206, well short of the two-thirds majority required to amend the Constitution. Only one Democrat, Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.), broke ranks to side with Republicans.
The amendment was about as simple as legislation gets: a single sentence: "The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices." If ratified, it would have permanently barred any future president and Congress from expanding the Court by adding seats, the practice we all know as court-packing.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Republicans wanted Democrats on the record. He told reporters Tuesday that the vote would force Democrats to "put their money where their mouth is" and reveal whether they were willing to permanently rule out expanding the Court.
🚨 WOW! Speaker Johnson just emerged and announced a Constitutional amendment to BAN Democrats from packing the Supreme Court
"We're putting the bill on the floor TOMORROW!"
"We WILL have them put their money where their mouth is!"
"We are going to bring a constitutional… pic.twitter.com/UYoyaqCSWB
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 1, 2026
Big whoop, right? Getting Democrats on the record sounds satisfying, but they already told us where they stood weeks earlier. A doomed floor vote doesn't accomplish much when the answer was never in doubt. Democrats are literally campaigning on the promise to pack the Court.
ICYMI: This Is the Reason Leftists Are Screaming Right Now
Republicans made the argument that expanding the Supreme Court would undermine its independence by allowing whichever party controls Congress at any given time to manufacture a more favorable ideological majority, which is the same argument that Joe Biden’s commission to study expanding the Court made.
But all Democrats know is that they hate the Court’s current 6-3 conservative majority, and they don’t care about the long term, just the short term. When the Court rules the way they want, the system works. When it doesn't, the rules need to be changed.
And they’ll come up with all sorts of poppycock to justify their plans. In fact, Democrats have even accused Republicans of having already packed the Court.
Raskin claimed Republicans engaged in "court packing on steroids," citing the GOP-controlled Senate's refusal to hold a confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland, President Obama's 2016 Supreme Court nominee, and the subsequent confirmation of President Trump's nominees.
None of that was court-packing.
So, either they don't understand the term, or they know exactly what it means and are betting the public doesn't. I’m guessing it’s the latter. Court-packing has always meant one specific thing: changing the number of seats on a court to make it friendlier to whoever holds power. President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried exactly that in 1937 after the Supreme Court kept blocking his New Deal agenda.
Is a constitutional amendment necessary? Absolutely. But Democrats can’t see the endless cycle of political parties expanding the Court to suit their needs whenever they’re in power. All they see is their immediate power needs.
So sure, it's on the record now that Democrats want to pack the Court as soon as it’s politically expedient—big deal. We already knew that. What matters now is what conservatives do to ensure they never get the chance.
