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Andy Biggs

Republican

“I want to pass an amendment that will decide how many Supreme Court Justices there are. There should be nine justices. That's my proposal.”

Andy Biggs

Republican

“I don't like that some people want to change the number of Supreme Court Justices. That's bad. Only nine justices, no more. I want to make it permanent. There is a right way to change things. Adding more justices is wrong. Some people are very bad. We must stop them. My amendment can do that.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court's job is to tell the American people the truth about the law, even when that truth is unpopular, even when a President doesn't like it, and even when Congress doesn't like it. That only works if the Court is independent. Alexander Hamilton expressed this in Federalist 78. He explained that the courts must be insulated from the political branches or they cannot do their job of protecting the rights of the people. Disagreeing with the Supreme Court is not just legitimate. It is American. We amend the Constitution, or we pass new laws. We elect Presidents who appoint different judges. That is how you change outcomes you don't like. That is the process the Founders gave us. But there is a world of difference between changing the law and changing the rules of the game because you don't like the last call. Packing the Court is not simply a policy disagreement. It is an attempt to change the structure of one of the three branches of government in order to guarantee the outcome you want. That is not reform. That is revolution. Here is the question every American should ask: If a sitting majority can change the size of the Supreme Court the moment it dislikes rulings, what happens the next time the other side is in power? What stops them from doing the same thing? As Justice Breyer said, this will start an ``arms race.'' Once you go down that road, the Court stops being an independent check on government power. It becomes another political institution controlled by whoever happens to hold the majority. We have already seen what this kind of rhetoric looks like. In 2020, Senator Schumer stood outside the Supreme Court and told Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh: `` . . . you have unleashed a whirlwind, and you will pay the price.'' That was a threat, a threat that goes well beyond any normal policy disagreement. Mr. Speaker, 2 years later, an armed man was arrested outside Justice Kavanaugh's home. Thankfully, law enforcement intervened before anyone was hurt. Words have consequences, and when political leaders convince people that the Supreme Court is illegitimate, some people take that rhetoric seriously. Some on the left aren't even hiding where this leads. The Democratic Socialists of America now openly call for abolishing the Senate and replacing the Presidency and the Supreme Court. I am not making that up. That is in their platform. Seeking to expand the Court is an admission that your arguments have not been good enough to persuade voters or your fellow legislators. We rely on a political process, including robust one-on-one debates, to convince voters that ours are the superior plans. When you can no longer convince enough voters that you have the best ideas, you have two choices: You can go back to voters with a better argument, or you can try to change the system so their vote doesn't matter as much. That is why the amendment before us is so important. It fixes the number of Justices at nine permanently. That is not because nine is a magic number. It is because a fixed Court cannot be expanded by whoever happens to win the next election. It makes the rule the same regardless of who is in power. To my friends on the other side of the aisle: We don't have to like every decision the Supreme Court makes. Heaven knows there are plenty of decisions I have disagreed with. That is not the point. The point is whether we are willing to live under a Constitution that limits our power even when we are the ones holding it. If we want to change the law, we can change the law, but we should not change the Supreme Court simply because we don't like the people sitting on it. Constitutional government requires accepting outcomes we don't like and fighting for change the right way: through elections, through legislation, and through the amendment process this very body is using today. Let's keep the Supreme Court independent. Let's keep it at nine Justices, and let's keep the Constitution bigger than whoever happens to be in power. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Jamie Raskin

Democrat

“You say we should change the number of Supreme Court Justices. I don't want that. I want nine justices, no more. You want to change things because you don't like the current court. That's bad. Our side is good. Your side is bad. I talk about many bad things you did. The court is not fair. It should change. No, it should not change. It is fine how it is. I want to keep things how they are.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. In this 119th Congress we have watched the President's followers in Congress surrender to the President one constitutional power after another. Amazingly, the Speaker and the MAGA party have abdicated nearly every single essential power that the Framers exclusively vested in us, Congress, the Representatives of the people. First is the power to declare war, which has been usurped by the President with catastrophic results for the country and without a peep from his sycophants in Congress. Next is the spending power, the power of the purse, the power to appropriate Federal dollars to spending and grant programs and to specify their purposes, powers that have been continually violated in acts of impoundment, nullification, and redirection by the President who has not only effectively shut down the Department of Education, USAID, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but has even helped himself, without any appropriation from Congress, to $1.8 billion of taxpayer money to give away to Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other convicted insurrectionists who attacked this body in order to try to overthrow a Presidential election in January of 2021; Next is the power to impose tariffs and taxes and the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, powers that have been ripped away from us without any protests from the majority so the President could launch preposterous trade wars against the world and aggressively insult and alienate our beloved neighbor and democratic ally Canada. They have abandoned even the power to decide whether or not the President should receive Presidential emoluments, gifts, payments from foreign governments as he piles up a pirate's treasure of hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts from foreign autocracies and monarchies. They have abandoned the unquestioned exclusive congressional power of Congress to build and exercise control over needful buildings and structures for the national government like the White House; the Reflecting Pool, which they are now calling the strait of warm ooze; and The Kennedy Center. All of these structures are being bulldozed, demolished, desecrated with Presidential graffiti, and renovated according to unilateral and independent executive decisions without even congressional consultation--all for the first time in American history. They are dangerously ceding our power to regulate the times, places, and manner of Federal elections conducted in the States to the post office and to our monarchically minded President who has no constitutional role in elections and was impeached by this Chamber for inciting a violent insurrection to try to overthrow an election, which he lost by more than 7 million votes, 306-232 in the electoral college. So what constitutional power do our colleagues propose to surrender today? Well, it is just a power that Congress has had since the beginning of the Republic under Article III, Section 1: the power to define the composition of the Supreme Court and the number of Justices who serve there. Over the course of our history, Congress has exercised this authority seven different times by changing the number of Justices on the Court. With the Judiciary Act of 1789, Congress established the first Court with six Justices. In 1801, President Adams and Congress shrank it to five Justices. When President Jefferson won in 1800 and came back to power, then it was back to six Justices. In 1807, Congress expanded it to seven Justices when it created the Seventh Circuit, keeping to the congressional tradition of one Justice per Federal Circuit. In 1837, Congress expanded the number of Federal Circuits to nine and then added the corresponding two seats to the Court, bringing the Court to nine Justices. In 1863, Congress briefly added a 10th Federal Circuit during the Civil War and added a 10th Justice, giving Lincoln one more to appoint. In 1866, Congress went back to seven Justices. In 1869, President Grant and Congress increased the Court to nine again with another Judiciary Act, again, matching the number of Justices to Federal Circuits. That is the tradition of circuit riding. Today, we still have nine Justices, although we have 13 Federal judicial circuits, the vast majority of which are not represented by even a single Justice among the nine currently serving on the Supreme Court. In fact, the floor leader from Arizona has not only no Justices from his State on the Supreme Court, there are no Justices from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has 67 million Americans living there. Five of the Justices today come from the New York City metropolitan area, basically one for each borough. Is it really possible that there are not people from other parts of the country who could effectively and honorably serve on the Supreme Court? Well, if we decided this on an originalist basis, we might move to place 13 Justices on the Court to match our 13 Federal circuits or we might go to 6 Justices, which was the original number there. However, MAGA's proposal is to strip Congress of all authority in the matter, to freeze it and cement it permanently in the constitutional architecture for all time, with the suddenly magic number nine. This is odd. Nine is neither the number of Federal circuits we have-- that is 13--nor is it the original number of Justices Congress placed on the Court. That was 6. Therefore, what is going on here? Well, surprise, surprise, America, it is another partisan power grab by MAGA, our colleagues who fear for the results of the November election, as their policies have brought us nothing but war, inflation, corruption, lawlessness, and a $40 trillion debt, one-quarter of it supplied by this Presidential administration. The MAGA party wants to cement into place a profoundly partisan and lopsided 6-3 Roberts Court that was gerrymandered and engineered by Mitch McConnell after the untimely deaths of Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg, each in the final year of a Presidential term. After Justice Scalia died on February 13, 2016, President Obama nominated my constituent, Merrick Garland, to fill the seat. Senator McConnell did not even allow hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, much less a vote in the committee, much less a vote on the floor. He said he wanted to let the people decide, and 11 months was too close to the next election; forgetting, I suppose, that President Obama had won one of those genuine constitutional 4-year terms in office. That seat sat open for a record-setting 422 days before they filled it with Justice Gorsuch. In other words, they were for an eight-Justice Court during that year, but when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020, less than 2 months before the election, when early voting had already started in some States, Senator McConnell rushed through confirmation hearings and then a final vote for Amy Coney Barrett just 8 days before the 2020 Presidential election took place, laughing about this glaring disparity in treatment, acknowledging what everyone knew: Well, that 1-year rule was just for the Democrats. They were very happy to barrel through that nomination at the last moment. Now, by essentially stealing these two seats from the American people, MAGA has put four of the five seats in the ruling majority rightwing faction in the hands of Justices appointed by two Presidents who lost the Presidential popular vote--George W. Bush in 2010 and Donald Trump in 2016. The rightwing capture of the Court, fueled by corporate dark money and the Citizens United decision, has plunged this Court into a legitimacy crisis, an ethics crisis, and a jurisprudential crisis like has never been seen before in American history. Trump's followers in Congress now seek to freeze into place the political Court that MAGA built for decades to come. Thus, they urge us to give away another critical power that the Framers vested in us. As gas and diesel prices soar out of control and Trumpflation spirals up for groceries, healthcare, housing, as Trump's reckless and forever war of choice in Iran spirals downward, and America increasingly stands isolated in the world, MAGA wants to impose a straitjacket clamp-down on our democracy, our freedom, and our constitutional rights. The Roberts Court overthrew Roe v. Wade and destroyed the constitutional right of women to comprehensive healthcare in every State in the country. It demolished the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, and the Callais decision just this term. Also, these fraudulent textualists invented out of thin air Presidential immunity from prosecution for felony crimes committed in office. In Federalist 51, Madison said that the major safeguard against tyranny and despotism in America would be the natural identification and loyalty that Members of Congress would show to our own branch of government. We would stand up for ourselves, Madison thought. ``Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,'' he wrote, but today's Republicans show no loyalty to the constitutional architecture of Congress, to our rights, our prerogatives, our powers. They are content just to keep their heads down, to close up shop, to go home as early as possible just to keep their jobs so the President will not mobilize social media and Elon Musk's money against them in a primary. They want to preserve their survivability, their marketability. What a humiliating and spectacular collapse of the tradition of congressional self-respect and constitutional patriotism. I urge every colleague in this body to oppose this ridiculous constitutional amendment and giveaway of congressional powers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Andy Biggs

Republican 12:40 p.m.

“You don't like Trump. You want to change the number of Supreme Court Justices to get your way. That's Court packing. We want nine Justices, no more. The other side tried this before. Roosevelt tried to pack the Court to get his way. The Senate said no. They said it was dangerous. They said it went against the Constitution. We should keep the Court at nine Justices. That's what we've had for a long time. You want to change it now because you don't like the current Court.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I get it, that the gentleman does not like Donald J. Trump and that this is an ideological position he is taking, which is kind of what the scholars have said is the definition of Court packing. When you want to increase the number of people on the Supreme Court so you can effectuate your ideological bent, yes, that is Court packing. This isn't new, this position that we are taking today. This was introduced in the 116th, which was under Donald Trump. It was introduced in the 118th, which was under Joe Biden. By the way, it was Joe Biden's own special commission that said it would be wrong to actually increase the number of people on the Supreme Court. Now, we have introduced this in the 119th. I do appreciate the gentleman talking about Arizona needs representation on the Supreme Court. I also think we need representation in the Ninth Circuit--it would be nice if you could help us along there--the circuit, a court that actually goes from the equator to the Arctic Circle. You can't even get an en banc there because they have 29 justices, appellate judges. You can't get an en banc in the Ninth because it is all random. Anyway, back to the point here, my colleagues on the other side tell us that the Supreme Court has changed before. They are right. However, there is an important piece of history that they leave out. For much of the 19th century, the size of the Supreme Court was tied to the size of the Federal judiciary. As the country expanded and Congress created new judicial circuits, Congress added Justices to help carry those responsibilities, but that changed in 1869. Congress fixed the Court at nine Justices, and for more than half of the length of this country, it has been nine Justices, regardless of the number of circuits. There is one historical example that matters most to the question before us today, and that is Franklin Roosevelt who, in 1937, after winning reelection, was furious that the Supreme Court had repeatedly struck down parts of his New Deal as unconstitutional. That was the birth, perhaps, of the attempt to have an imperial executive. Instead of changing laws to comply with the Constitution, he proposed changing the Court. His plans would have allowed him to add up to six new Justices, and who would appoint those Justices? The President of the United States would. Who was the President? Franklin Roosevelt. Everyone understood what was happening. It wasn't about building a better courthouse. It wasn't about adding circuits. It wasn't about helping manage expanding judicial caseload. It was about changing the composition of the Court for ideological purposes. Here is what happened: The plan faced fierce opposition, including from members of Roosevelt's own party. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes pushed back. The Senate ultimately rejected the plan, and this is what they said--this is from the records today: ``We recommend the rejection of this bill as a needless, futile, and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle.'' Not holding firm at nine, but because you wanted--not you, but the Democratic Party at that time--not even the Democratic Party, excuse me, let's be very clear, one individual, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. ``It is a proposal without precedent and without justification,'' they said. ``It would subjugate the courts to the will of Congress and the President and thereby destroy the independence of the judiciary, the only certain shield of individual rights.'' ``It points the way to the evasion of the Constitution and establishes the method whereby the people may be deprived of their right to pass upon all amendments of the fundamental law.'' ``It is a measure which should be so emphatically rejected that its parallel will never again be presented to the free representatives of the free people of America.'' Do you know what ``it'' was, the measure that they were so offended by? It was an attempt to pack the Court. Next time, I will probably start reading all the folks on the other side who want to do that very thing. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Harris).

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Mark Harris

Republican 12:50 p.m.

“I want to add to what my colleague said. The Supreme Court should have only nine Justices. Some people want to pack the Court. They want to do this to get power. We need to stop them. The Court needs to stay independent. It should protect our rights. It should follow the Constitution. We should not let the other side scare the Court. We should pass this amendment. It will keep the Court at nine Justices. That will protect the Court. That will protect our rights.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Biggs), for his leadership in this. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.J. Res. 1, which proposes an amendment to the Constitution that would require the Supreme Court of the United States to be composed of nine Justices. This action will uphold the Court's legitimacy, protect the checks and balances that defend our fundamental freedoms, and ensure that every American's rights will remain protected, regardless of who holds political power. For decades, we have heard calls from those unhappy with the ideological balance of the Supreme Court to pack the Court. The alarming rise of such calls should worry all of us because their objective is not to uphold ethical principles or even to protect individual rights but rather to consolidate power and intimidate the Court. Our Founders understood that liberty cannot survive when power goes unchecked. They therefore built a system of checks and balances, with an independent Supreme Court serving as a critical safeguard for the rights and freedoms of every American. The Court's role is not to advance a political party's agenda but to uphold the Constitution and protect liberty even when doing so means standing apart from the passions of the moment. At a time when our Supreme Court is facing ongoing and escalating attacks, Congress must and can act to defend it. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support this proposed amendment, and I urge all my colleagues to support maintaining the integrity of the United States Supreme Court.

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Jamie Raskin

Democrat 12:50 p.m.

“I don't want to talk about the actual bill. I brought up something from 10 years ago to change the subject. I hope that people will be distracted by talking about that instead.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The floor leader offers a charming and completely self-defeating argument when he goes to the Roosevelt plan. FDR was a President, and Congress rejected his plan. The gentleman acknowledges that Congress has changed the size of the Supreme Court seven different times, and we have also declined to change it several times. Now, he describes what Roosevelt wanted to do as Court packing. This is Court packing on steroids. The gentleman wants to say that this President happens to like the people on the Court right now, through all of the packing and stacking and gerrymandering that has taken place in the last few years, and therefore we should freeze it, not just only for his own term but for all time. That is extraordinary. In the meantime, they have not offered a single argument to explain why nine Justices should be the number that we constitutionalize and place in cement forever. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson), who is the ranking member of the Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet Subcommittee.

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Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr.

Democrat 12:50 p.m.

“I don't like this resolution. The other side is bad and mean. They pretend to care about the courts. They want power for their friends. They want to take away people's rights. This is not good for people who look like Justice Thomas. We should not pass this resolution.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time, and I rise in opposition to this resolution. For decades, MAGA Republicans have systematically chipped away at the impartiality of our third branch. They have already delegitimized our judiciary, yet they now stand before the American people pretending to be guardians of judicial integrity. Today's blatant attempt to rewrite history would be laughable if the consequences were not so dangerous for our democracy, but history matters. The American people deserve to understand how we got to this moment. To understand how we get here, we must follow both the money and the machinery behind the modern conservative legal movement. The Roberts Court is the culmination of a decades-long crusade by Republicans to concentrate power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many by packing the United States Supreme Court and the lower Federal courts as well. Wealthy donors and corporate interests led by The Federalist Society spent billions of dollars to pack the judiciary with rightwing, conservative, corporate, polluting-serving judges and justices, and nowhere is the success of this decades-long Court-packing effort more visible than at the Supreme Court where a carefully curated, appointed, and conservative supermajority now delivers the conservative outcomes this movement spent billions of dollars to achieve, and achieve they did. In the last several years, the Roberts Court opened the floodgates to unlimited dark money in our political system, empowering billionaires and oligarchs and other powerful special interests to accomplish through the Supreme Court what they can't accomplish through the legislative branch, and that is to drown out the voices of ordinary Americans. Abraham Lincoln once said that: ``This government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.'' Yet that seems to be the vision for America that Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Alito, and the other MAGA majority members on the Court believe. Where some enjoy easy access to the ballot box while others are forced to overcome legal barriers, this is not America. They want to make it such that the voices of those who look like Justice Thomas are quieter. Our Nation is now in Jim Crow 2.0. We are a nation where the right to vote can, once again, be diluted, restricted, or simply ignored and where the voices of rich and powerful people carry more weight than the voice of ordinary Americans; but, particularly, Americans who look like Clarence Thomas, who no longer have the equal opportunity to elect the Representatives of their choice. The American people deserve a judiciary that serves our democracy, not a narrow ideological agenda that only benefits the rich and powerful. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this resolution.

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Andy Biggs

Republican 12:50 p.m.

“I don't agree with you. The court is not packed. Justices decide many cases together. They think about the Constitution. I don't want to talk about Trump.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I do think it is a charming and quaint argument to say that President Trump has packed the Court. Here are some patterns that you need to know just from the last term alone: 50 percent of the cases decided were decided unanimously. That doesn't sound like a packed Court, and only 5 of 57 cases, just 8 percent, were decided 6-3 with six Republican appointees on one side and three Democrats on the other. Ninety percent of the 57 cases were decided with at least one liberal Justice in the majority, 90 percent. The three liberal Justices voted together in fewer than one-quarter of the nine unanimous cases. That doesn't sound like packing. That sounds like a lot of thoughtful folks on the United States Supreme Court rendering decisions they believe in and they believe comprise constitutional opinion. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

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Jim Jordan

Republican 12:50 p.m.

“I don't like Democrats. They want to change the court. They attack the court. I think this bill is good. I want to stop the Democrats. I have questions for the other side.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. It is planned, and it is orchestrated. The Democrats' systematic attack on the independence of the Court has been going on now for several years, and it started right where the sponsor of the legislation read from first, when he said that Senator Chuck Schumer said: ``I want to tell you, Gorsuch; I want to tell you, Kavanaugh; you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.'' Guess where he said that, Mr. Speaker, the top Democrat in the government at the time, where did he say that? It was on the steps of the United States Supreme Court. Then, of course, 1 year later, Democrats--not just any Democrats, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee--introduced the bill to go from 9 to 13, the Court-packing bill. Why did they want to add four? Why not one? Why not two? Why not three? Why four? It is because they want to take the Court from a 6-3 conservative majority Court to a 7-6 liberal Court. It is all planned. Then, of course, we had the systematic attacks on two Justices in particular, Justice Alito and Justice Thomas. They even had a hearing in the Judiciary Committee where they brought in the guy who was demonstrated to be a liar when he was trying to say that Justice Alito was involved in leaking an opinion. That was total garbage. Then, of course, we had the real leak, the Dobbs leak, on May 2, 2022. What happened after that? Mr. Speaker, 150 churches and crisis pregnancy centers around the country were attacked, not to mention the planned assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh in the aftermath of that leaked decision. This whole systematic, orchestrated, and planned attack on the independence of one of the separate but equal branches of our government is serious stuff. Then, of course, we now have the Democratic Socialists of America who want to get rid of the Court. They want to get rid of the Senate, and they want to replace the President. This is their party, the once great party. We mentioned FDR in this context, but in the broader context, the once great party of FDR and JFK is now controlled and is now anti- Israel, socialist, and all kinds of crazy ideas that go to the heart of what our country is about and our Constitution. This is a good piece of legislation. Maybe this is a question these guys want to answer, Mr. Speaker. Maybe they want to answer some of these questions. Do they support replacing the Presidency? Do they support replacing the Court? Do they support abolishing the United States Senate? That would be an interesting question for the folks on the other side. We know they want to pack the Court. Do they agree with the Democratic Socialists who want to abolish the Court? I thank the gentleman and also one of our other colleagues, Mr. Johnson from South Dakota, who has worked on this legislation for a long, long time. This is important. This is important because we know where they want to go. We should remember when the Democratic Socialist Mamdani was sworn in as mayor of our largest city 9 months and 2 days ago, he said: ``I was elected as a Democratic Socialist, and I will govern as a Democratic Socialist.'' These are their principles. Does my friend and colleague, Mr. Speaker, on the other side, controlling the time, the law professor, does he agree with what the Democratic Socialists are saying? That would be an important question for this body to understand. Mr. Speaker, I thank the guys who sponsored this legislation.

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Jamie Raskin

Democrat 1:00 p.m.

“You call our plans socialist. I don't care. I think you like communism. Your friends are communists. You asked why a Democrat wanted more justices. I will tell you why. He wanted 13 judges for 13 courts. I want Congress to decide how many judges there should be. You don't say why 9 is the right number. I think you just want the court to do what you like. I will let someone else talk now.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I will try to answer the interesting questions raised by my distinguished colleague, Mr. Jordan, in seriatim. First of all, anything that we do to try to improve the fortunes and the well-being of the American people, our colleagues call socialist. They call Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid socialist. That is just water off our back. The President talks about communists. The only communists on Earth today are his best friends and his role models, like Kim Jong-un, who he writes love letters to, and President Xi, who he has praised more than two dozen times in public. How about Vladimir Putin, who he follows around like a puppy dog? Vladimir Putin was head of the KGB. If there is a problem with communism, it is over on that side of the aisle. The gentleman legitimately asked the question: Why did the former chair of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Nadler, advocate for an increase of four seats on the Supreme Court--which we are not debating today? What we are debating is whether Congress should have the power to do anything, to increase or reduce the size. He asked about that. It is a legitimate question. I will tell you exactly why. The gentleman may be unfamiliar with the history here, but Congress has traditionally linked the number of Justices on the Court to the number of Federal circuits. We have 13 Federal circuits. His proposal was to go from 9 to 13. Even the gentleman's beloved Ninth Circuit--which I think he is supposed to be representing in some sense--would be represented on the Supreme Court. We could have one Justice from each Federal circuit. That is what circuit riding was all about. You don't need some conspiracy theory to explain it. He was very overt about why he wanted to go from 9 to 13, which we could discuss another day. Here the question is whether we should nullify, obviate, and destroy our own power to decide who should be on the Court. Still, the gentleman has not offered one single argument explaining why the number nine should be magic other than it cements into place all the decisions of this rightwing Roberts Court. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.

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Mary Gay Scanlon

Democrat 1:00 p.m.

“I don't want this amendment. It will lock in a court I don't like. I want the court to do what I like. The people I talk to want that too. I think the court is bad. It takes away rights. It helps people I don't like. I want the court to do what the people want. I don't want this amendment to pass. I think there are other ways to get the court I want.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, as ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, I am here to emphasize that this proposed constitutional amendment would undermine our system of checks and balances and fly in the face of the Founders' wisdom. I think it would be a grave mistake to dictate how many Justices should sit on the Supreme Court in perpetuity and, thereby, lock in for a generation, or more, a rightwing majority, which has engaged in an unprecedented assault on Supreme Court norms and our constitutional order. For the past several years, in the wake of the Court packing that occurred during the first Trump administration and under the Senate leadership of Mitch McConnell, constituents have called for Supreme Court reform at every townhall that I have held. Those calls have grown louder in the wake of each decision that has lessened our individual rights and liberties or enabled the administration to avoid accountability or overrule the powers and duties reserved to the American people through their Representatives in Congress and in the ethical lapses of the Court's own members. People are paying attention. They are demanding a Court that is more responsive to we the people than to an administration that is beholden to special interests and oligarchs. The American public, the Founders, and the Constitution demand more than a misguided constitutional amendment that would permanently tie Congress' hands by capping the number of Justices, especially when there are more pragmatic solutions that have not yet received due consideration. Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to reject this measure.

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Ralph Norman

Republican 1:00 p.m.

“I support this amendment. I don't want more justices. I want things to stay the same. Court packing is bad. It was bad before. It's bad now. If we add justices now, we'll just keep adding more. That would be bad. We need to respect the court. We shouldn't change it when we don't like the rulings.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Mr. Biggs' constitutional amendment. As Congressman Jordan mentioned, this is serious business. Just like it is serious business about what the other party did on letting 20 to who knows illegals in this country to create a power base. That is who you are going to have to answer to, the public. That is who this country is paying for now. The 20 to 30, who knows, illegals in this country. Why don't you pass the SAVE Act, which is just a verification that you are an American citizen to vote? This is following a dangerous path, and I am glad the citizens are finally showing up to recognize the problem that we have with this. Just the other day, my Democratic colleague Jim Clyburn said he wants to pack the Court with 13 Justices. I couldn't disagree more. South Carolina doesn't need a baker's dozen of Supreme Court Justices. We need politicians to respect the independence of the nine that we already have. Court packing was a bad idea when FDR tried it in 1937. It is a bad idea today. Even members of his own party pushed back against this scheme. FDR wanted to reshape the Supreme Court that was standing in the way of his agenda. The same principle is at work here today: When you don't like the ruling, change the Court. The Constitution does not guarantee either party the Supreme Court decisions it wants. Losing a case is not justification for adding Justices. Thirteen is not some magic number. Once politicians start changing the size of the Court to get favorable rulings, there is no logical stopping point. Today it is 13. Tomorrow it could be 17 and then 21. That would turn the Supreme Court into just another political arm of Congress. Mr. Speaker, you don't protect democracy by changing the rules every time you lose. You protect it by respecting our institutions, even when you disagree with the outcomes. The answer is to take Court packing off the table permanently, which is why I support this.

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Jamie Raskin

Democrat 1:00 p.m.

“I want to talk. I think the other side is wrong. The constitution allows us to change the number of justices. I want to keep talking about this. Why is nine the right number? I don't know. I won't say why I think it's wrong. I just want people to agree with me.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. By ``leftwing socialist group,'' I assume the gentleman is referring to the Framers of the Constitution. It is the Framers who set up the system. They are trying to overthrow the system that the Framers created. The Framers gave Congress the power to control the number of Justices on the Court. Where does the number nine come from? I still await a single positive argument for why we should inscribe into law forever the number nine as the number of Justices we should have and nullify the power that the Framers of the Constitution and the Founders of the country gave to us. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

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Melanie A. Stansbury

Democrat 1:00 p.m.

“You want to change the constitution. I don't like that. I think you are wrong. I want more changes to the court. I don't like what the court has done. I think your changes are bad. I want equity and fairness. Why do you want this? I think you just want to look good. I think you have no real plan. I think you caused our problems. I am against this. I will vote no.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, today, the GOP is proposing a constitutional amendment to lock in the current conservative Supreme Court. In fact, it would take away the power of this Congress to reform the Court. The question is why? Who asked them to do this? Where did this proposal come from? Why are Republicans arguing that they have to protect the Court from reform? This is a Court that has, under this conservative majority, undermined democracy, undermined our rights, and undermined the system of checks and balances that make this country great. These reforms would bring equity, fairness, and ethics to the Court. Why are my colleagues across the aisle bringing this constitutional amendment? It is clear in the debate here on the floor itself that they don't even know how many Justices are currently sitting. In fact, my colleague across the aisle just claimed that there are currently 13 Justices sitting on the Court. What is this? Political theater? Is this what you plan to run on because you don't actually have an agenda to run on this election cycle? Because you have decimated the economy, because you have an unending war in the Middle East, and because Americans can't afford their healthcare, their housing, and putting food on the table and a roof over their head, I am a hell no on this resolution, and I will vote ``no.''

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Jamie Raskin

Democrat 1:10 p.m.

“You want to change the constitution. I don't like that. I think your changes are bad. Where are your changes that I like? I want equal rights. I want no corporate money. I want different election rules. Lots of people want those things. Why don't you want that? I think you just want to look good. I think you have no real plan. I am against this. I will vote no.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I will add to the remarks of the distinguished gentlewoman, this point: It is interesting that our colleagues suddenly want to dabble in constitutional amendment politics. Nobody is crying out for this, as my colleagues have argued, but you know what people want by 85 percent? People want the equal rights amendment. Where is the Republican Party on that? They used to support it. Three-quarters of Americans, more than 75 percent, want to overturn Citizens United by a constitutional amendment, which transformed every corporate treasury in America into a dark money political slush fund. We want to get rid of that. How come they are not here today on that? How about a constitutional amendment on the right to vote or abolishing the electoral college and giving us a national vote for President? We have commanding popular majorities that want all those things. Yet, they come forward with a constitutional amendment no one is talking about where you need two-thirds of the House, two-thirds of the Senate, and three-quarters of the States. You can measure the sincerity of this whole proposal by virtue of the fact that there is no national movement for it in any way. This is, again, another little bone that is chucked over toward the White House to show them that they want to freeze into place the vanishing power of Donald Trump. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Andy Biggs

Republican 1:10 p.m.

“You say we don't follow the constitution. But we are! We do it all the time. I don't know why you complain. Now I will let someone else talk.”

Dusty Johnson

Republican 1:10 p.m.

“I want to keep the Supreme Court at nine justices. Nine is a good number. I don't want the other party to make the court bigger. They want to pack the court to get power. That's bad. We should keep the court the same size. Even liberal justices want nine. I want this amendment to pass. I want the constitution to say nine justices.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding. Mr. Speaker, today's debate has convinced me more than ever that we need to cap the number of Supreme Court Justices at nine. Now, for the last 5 years, I have been a leader in this push to keep the nine, and I am thrilled we are taking this measure up today. In Washington, we have a habit of weaponizing everything for political advantage. Seemingly no norm is safe, and indeed prominent leaders on the other side of the aisle have promised us that they will pack the Court with four more Supreme Court Justices when they regain power. Now, the size of the Supreme Court should not be an arms race. It should not swell after an election to be able to grab some additional political power. That is the stuff of banana republics and authoritarian regimes. By the way, I am not making that up. You can look across the globe in recent history and you can see Hungary increasing their court to 15. You can see Turkiye increasing their court to 17. You can see Venezuela increasing their court to an eye-watering 32 justices in the pursuit of political power. This is not a theoretical threat. Let's look to history. For 150 years, nine Supreme Court Justices have served us well. The gentleman from Maryland indicates that there is no possible reason that somebody could support nine as the right number. Actually, Supreme Court Justices support nine as the number. They think that is the right size of the Court to have a collaborative, deliberative, functional Court. That is the Goldilocks spot, and it is not just conservative Justices who say it. Retired liberal Justice Stephen Breyer said nine was the right number, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, before her death, said nine was the right number. They are joined by thousands of legal minds across the political spectrum. That, the gentleman from Maryland should know, is the right reason to set nine. Today, we have an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to heed those bipartisan calls, to remove a weapon in the hands of partisans, to defend and to protect a longstanding judicial norm, and to place the number of Supreme Court Justices as nine in our Constitution. Mr. Speaker, I support the measure before us today. Let's keep the nine.

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Jamie Raskin

Democrat 1:10 p.m.

“I did not say that. You want to keep nine justices because you like the court how it is now. Your party played politics with the court. You kept it at eight justices for a year. You would not vote on Merrick Garland. Now you want nine in the constitution. I think you just want to keep your majority.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman quotes me as having said that I said there was no possible reason that someone would want nine. No, I didn't say that at all. I think there might be a number of reasons. One very clear one is they want to freeze into place the majority they have in the Court right now, a majority that was created by the most suspect political maneuvers on the Senate side. The gentleman would like to lionize the number nine and place it in cement. Why wasn't it nine when Senator McConnell blocked any confirmation or vote on a replacement for Justice Scalia after he died? He kept it at eight for an entire year in order to get to the next administration so they could put Justice Gorsuch in instead of my constituent, Merrick Garland, who is one of the most talented people ever nominated to the Supreme Court. He was the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit, and they kept him off. Eight was fine with them then. Now, they want to go to nine because President Trump likes it just fine. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Menefee).

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Christian D. Menefee

Democrat 1:10 p.m.

“I don't want this amendment. It would lock us at nine justices. This court takes away rights. Justices take secret gifts. The people want reform. They want term limits. They want a court that reflects them. We should use our power, not give it away. Vote no.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this constitutional amendment that would lock the number of Supreme Court Justices at nine. The more I listen to this debate, the more it is abundantly clear to me that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have no desire to use the power that was given to us under the Constitution. When President Trump starts a war in Iran, they refuse to pass a War Powers Resolution. Now I am hearing an argument that we should lock the number at nine because that is what the Supreme Court wants, but that is not how the Constitution works. The Constitution says that it is Congress that has the power to set the size of the Supreme Court. It is our call, and this has happened multiple times in the history of this country. Ask yourself, why would my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to give that power away? Because they want to lock in this Supreme Court--this Supreme Court that has gutted voting rights, this Supreme Court that has taken away a woman's right to choose, and this Supreme Court where Justices take secret gifts and private jets and answer to absolutely nobody. Americans are asking for something in the Supreme Court. They are asking for reform. They want to see ethics reform. They want to see term limits. They want to see a Supreme Court that reflects the American people and not just the few, a small group of elites. Congress should be using its power, not giving it away. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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Harriet M. Hageman

Republican 1:10 p.m.

“I want this amendment. It would keep nine justices on the Supreme Court. The court has had nine members for 150 years. It blocks actions that threaten liberty. The other side wants to change the court. They want to pack it with political actors. That would end our Republic. We must stop them.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.J. Res. 1, proposing a constitutional amendment to maintain nine Justices on the United States Supreme Court. The composition of the Supreme Court has consistently been maintained at nine members for over 150 years, a period of time during which the Court issued some of its most important constitutional jurisprudence. Throughout these years, and as the Founders intended, the Court has served as a vital check on government power, blocking those actions that violate the Constitution and threaten individual liberty. We must remember that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution. In recent years, however, and as the Supreme Court has correctly returned to its originalist roots, there are many on the left who have sought to politicize the Court. They justify their actions not because the Court's decisions do not fully comport with the Constitution but because such decisions undermine the leftist views of the world and the radical agenda as described repeatedly today by those on the other side. Their solution to losing these constitutional legal arguments isn't to seek to change the law but to attack the Supreme Court and threaten to pack it with judicial advocates. They thus seek to upend and eradicate 150 years of precedent to further their political agenda, an agenda that they have been unable to pursue through the legislative process. We know their agenda is both unwise and unpopular amongst the American people and will only serve to politicize a body that was always meant to be independent and impartial. Calls for packing the Supreme Court, whether it be from FDR over half a century ago or from elected Democrat officials in the 21st century, are designed to do one of two things: threaten and hold the Court hostage to control its decisions or to load it with political actors so as to change its nature entirely. Members of this body and the American public at large should recall that when one branch of government consumes another and controls its functions, the Republic ceases to exist and we descend into a state of tyranny, which is what the Democrats are seeking and especially the Democratic Socialists of America. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Biggs and Chairman Jordan for their leadership on this legislation, and I urge all of my colleagues to support H.J. Res. 1.

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What they said. What they meant.

Recent debates

Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to Require That the Supreme Court of the United States Be Composed of Nine Justices

Andy Biggs

Andy Biggs

Jamie Raskin

Andy Biggs

Mark Harris

Jamie Raskin

Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr.

Andy Biggs

Jim Jordan

Jamie Raskin

Mary Gay Scanlon

Ralph Norman

Jamie Raskin

Melanie A. Stansbury

Jamie Raskin

Andy Biggs

Dusty Johnson

Jamie Raskin

Christian D. Menefee

Harriet M. Hageman