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Jamie Raskin

Democrat 1:20 p.m.

“I don't want this amendment. Congress should keep its power to change the court size. FDR tried to change the court size. Congress rejected it. We aren't giving away power. The other side's policies are bad. I want us to keep our power.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, quickly, just as Congress has exercised its authority seven different times to reduce the size of the Court or increase the size of the Court according to appropriate historical circumstances, it has rejected numerous proposals to do that, including in the famed Court-Packing Plan. I don't know why our colleagues insist on thinking that FDR's field proposal is somehow an argument for giving our power away. We exercised our power properly in that moment. The gentlewoman from Wyoming refers to the Democratic political program. I am not sure what she is referring to, but it is certainly the opposite of the GOP political program of endless war, inflation, corruption, illegal tariffs, and billion-dollar ballrooms. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Lauren Boebert

Republican 1:20 p.m.

“I don't want the other side to change the court size. They want more judges. That's bad. Our court system should be fair. The other side is not fair. They lost but want to change the rules. That is bad. The other side is bad. They are socialists. They are bad. Our country is not like the Third World. Socialists are bad. They want to control the court. They want to change our country. They opened our borders. The other side is radical. They are not fair. I want our side to win.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in defense of the judicial branch of the United States Government. The Supreme Court of the United States is not a partisan prize to be captured. It is an independent branch of our government, and it must remain impartial. My colleague's amendment to limit the Supreme Court to nine Justices preserves judicial fairness, ensures unbiased decisionmaking, and upholds the constitutional duties of our Nation's highest court. Some on the left have advocated for expanding the Court to 13 Justices, paving the way for the majority of leftwing ideologues to sit on the Supreme Court under future Presidential administrations. We cannot simply change the rules because one side thinks that they are not getting their way enough. That is not how a constitutional republic works, Mr. Speaker. This is what happens in the Third World, and it cannot happen here in America. Democratic Socialists, kind of an oxymoron, are on the rise, and they want to pack the Court so they can impose an agenda the American people never voted for. Look at what happened yesterday. Democrats could not even vote against socialism because their own party is overrun by self-proclaimed socialists. We already saw what the far left did under Joe Biden by opening our borders. Just imagine what they would do with a court packed with DSA judges. The proposed expansion of the Supreme Court is not about faithfully interpreting the laws of the United States and the Constitution. Rather, the expansion would support a radical leftist agenda, repugnant to the ideas in equality, liberty, and impartial justice under the law of our Founding Fathers. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption.

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Jamie Raskin

Democrat 1:20 p.m.

“You are bad. The other side is bad and mean. The other side only cares about one family. The other side is socialist. The other side does not like the courts. The other side is not fair. I don't want the other side to change the court size. They want more judges. That's bad. Our court system should be fair. The other side is not fair. They lost but want to change the rules. That is bad. The other side is bad. They are socialists. They are bad. Our country is not like the Third World. Socialists are bad. They want to control the court. They want to change our country. They opened our borders. The other side is radical. They are not fair. I want our side to win.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am moved by the remarks of the distinguished gentlewoman from Colorado. It seems to me if it doesn't make money for the Trump family, they call it socialist. That is interesting, especially when it is President Trump who is taking large pieces out of American corporations, like Intel. No other American President has done anything like that. He is, obviously, the state socialist and hanging around and palling around with every communist dictator on Earth. Again, we have not heard a single positive argument for why we should cement for all time nine as the number of Justices on the Supreme Court. I am beginning to conclude that there simply is no argument. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Derek Schmidt

Republican 1:20 p.m.

“Some people say the Supreme Court is a rubber stamp for Trump. That's not true. The court stopped Trump from doing some things. Some Democrats agree with me. This used to be a bipartisan issue. It wasn't just a Republican or Democrat issue. I used to be attorney general. In 2020, I supported this measure. A Republican and a Democrat also supported it. I want to add some statements and letters to the record.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, you will hear from advocates of Court expansion that the Court is a mere rubber stamp for Trump. This is a Court that defied Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, to deport people without a hearing, to send troops to Chicago, to use emergency powers to impose tariffs, and to revoke birthright citizenship by executive order. Some of my colleagues on both sides may be surprised that I just uttered those words, but those are not my words. Those are the words of three of my former colleagues, three former State Democratic attorneys general, who strongly support the Keep Nine Amendment and disagree with my friends on the other side: Chris Gorman from Kentucky, Steve Rosenthal, and Tony Troy from Virginia. Mr. Speaker, it is sad that until this Congress, this was a bipartisan issue. It wasn't a Republican issue. It wasn't a Democratic issue. Back when I served my State as attorney general in 2020, I wrote to the then-sponsors of this measure in this body and expressed my support for it, and it was a Republican from Virginia and a Democrat from Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I include both of these statements and letters in the Record at this point.

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Derek Schmidt

Republican 1:20 p.m.

“I want to decide how many justices are on the Supreme Court. I think it should be nine. If we change this, it will make the Court political. The other side is complaining, but the Court is important.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I have long supported the Keep Nine Amendment because I think it is the right thing to do for our Republic. As has been stated here many times in today's somewhat jovial but I think very serious debate, turning the Supreme Court into a political football, whose size is expanded first by Republicans, then by Democrats, whoever has the political will and whoever is aggrieved at the moment will undermine that Court's ability to perform its unique and critical constitutional function. For all of the distress that my friends on the other side have right now in their complaints about the Court, I assure this body those will be magnified manyfold if we allow ourselves to get into a bidding war over the size of the institution across the street. Mr. Speaker, I have sat there seven times at counsel table. I have argued three causes. I have second-chaired four others--

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Derek Schmidt

Republican 1:20 p.m.

“I want this amendment to pass. It will make the number of justices stay at nine. We can't change it ourselves. The people must decide.”

Jamie Raskin

Democrat 1:20 p.m.

“I don't want to change the number of justices. Congress should decide it like the Constitution says. I don't think we need this amendment. I want Congress to keep its power. I want Congress to decide. I don't trust the President to decide. The President taxed us too much with tariffs. I blame him for a trade war with Canada. I want Congress to have more power. The Constitution says Congress decides this.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, finally, a serious argument. I thank the distinguished gentleman, the former attorney general of Kansas, for responding. First of all, he describes this as the Keep Nine Amendment. If you want to keep at nine, you don't need a constitutional amendment. You just make that argument in Congress, just like people argued in prior centuries to keep it at ten or keep it at six or let's move to seven, so we don't need to freeze it into the Constitution. Secondly, he says that this should be a bipartisan issue. It should not be partisan. Agreed. We should have a bipartisan commitment to the handiwork of the Framers. It is in the Constitution that it is up to Congress. Yet, the gentleman leaves us by saying: Well, we are actually going to turn it over to the people to decide whether to revoke this power that the Framers invested in Congress. Of course, that is what it would mean to amend the Constitution. Why would we want to do that? We have dealt with this in a responsible way throughout American history. We are suspicious that our colleagues first gave away the war power to the President. Then they give away the spending power by letting him just abolish entire agencies and entities, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, USAID, and the Department of Education. Then they give the President the power over tariffs, which we have because we have the power to regulate commerce domestically and internationally, and he imposed the largest tax in American history unilaterally. That is what a tariff is. It is not a tax on China or any other country. It is a tax on our businesses and our people. Now we are in a trade war with Canada. If you travel to the north of Michigan in the Upper Peninsula, you go to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, you go to the Adirondacks in New York, the small businesses are crying out for help because Canadians are boycotting us because of the whimsical, irrational, and deranged trade policies of this administration. We have real problems to deal with. We don't really need to be giving away the powers of Congress and upsetting the proper balance of powers that was set by the Framers originally. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Jamie Raskin

Democrat 1:20 p.m.

“I don't want to change the number of justices. It should stay how it is. Congress should decide it like the Constitution says. I don't think we need this amendment. The other side just wants to change things because they like the current court. The court decided in their favor. I think that's wrong. I don't trust the President. He wants too much power. The court gave it to him. That wasn't right. I think the court should stay the same. Congress should keep its power. I want Congress to decide. I don't trust the President to decide.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, one still searches in vain for a single justification for why we would surrender and abdicate yet another power that Congress has in the Constitution, this time freezing it into the cement of constitutional architecture for all time, that there will be nine Justices. Mr. Speaker, they haven't even explained what that means. For example, let's say another Senate decides to do what Mitch McConnell did and hold a seat open for a year. Now that we have written a number into the Constitution for the first time, does that mean that the Supreme Court can't meet or can't vote? It is a serious question. In other words, can the Supreme Court not operate if it doesn't meet the magic number of nine? They haven't told us, which shows this is just frivolous political confetti that is being thrown into the air. It is not an attempt to really think through the powers of Congress, the powers of the Court, and so on. My friend from Kansas said that the Court shouldn't be a political football, and I agree with him about that because there are important things entrusted to the Court, like the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and due process, all things under attack by this administration. Their gerrymandered Supreme Court, well, they have done all right sometimes, not as good as the district courts and the appeals courts have done. We have won more than 80 percent of the cases against President Trump in those courts, which is why they have been calling for the impeachment of judges, including Republican-appointed judges like Judge Boasberg, who was appointed by President Bush. They have called for his impeachment. That is making a political football out of it. We have had colleagues who have put up posters to impeach this judge and impeach that judge. They wanted to have a hearing about it in the Judiciary Committee, where they are talking about it. That is making a political football about it. I think we can all be intellectually honest. We know after Brown v. Board, the right-wingers, the anti-integrationists said to impeach Earl Warren, and the Republican platform for decades had language attacking the Supreme Court for Roe v. Wade. People have a right on all sides of the political spectrum to express what they feel about the Supreme Court, but why suddenly should we amend the Constitution of the United States to revoke our own powers simply because President Trump happens to like this Supreme Court and they voted for his immunity from felony crimes committed while in office, the so-called textualists and the so-called originalists. Where do you see in the Constitution anything about the President having immunity? When the Framers wanted to write immunity into the Constitution, they did it, like through the Speech and Debate Clause for Members of Congress. Maybe that is what they are going to want to give up next, the Speech and Debate Clause protecting us from prosecution by the executive branch for saying things that he doesn't like. That is not in the original Constitution. The President has it, but they made it up. Where did that come from? The stork brought it. They invented it. They call themselves originalists. It wasn't in the Federalist Papers. It wasn't in the original Constitutional Convention records. It is not in any of the ratified convention records. Where did that doctrine come from? They made it up. Mr. Speaker, we all can argue about what the Supreme Court does, but nobody yet has made a single satisfactory argument about why we should freeze, for the first time in American history, the number of Justices at nine when it has always been up to the Representatives of the people in the House and the Senate. Let me just close on that thought. The Senate already gets some say over the Supreme Court by rendering the power of advice and consent. The only power we have is the power they want to give up. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Andy Biggs

Republican 1:30 p.m.

“My opponents want to pack the court with more justices. They say they don't like some recent decisions. But the court has worked fine with nine justices for a long time. If we change the number now, it will just lead to more and more changes later. Justice Breyer warned against that. He said court packing would become a political arms race. I want to prevent that by keeping the number at nine. Let the voters decide. I think everyone should support my amendment. It will protect the court from ideological changes.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the consternation my colleague across the aisle has when he says that he hasn't found any arguments persuasive. Let me tell you something: He would never find any of these arguments persuasive because he wants to pack the Court. His very argument is that if you pass a constitutional amendment, you can never change the Constitution. It is absolutely one of the most specious arguments I have heard because if you amend the Constitution, guess what. Does that mean that that amendment itself, that you have brought in, can never be amended again? No, because the system is clear, the system that he has been arguing against this entire time. The system, the Constitution itself, allows us to say to the American people: We would like to amend the Constitution. We are going to give it to you. We think this should be done. Mr. Speaker, that is really what we are talking about here. We are talking about this failure to appreciate the position that they sit in. They say that this whole thing, quite frankly, has been about Donald Trump. That is what their whole argument against this has been. Oh, they passed this immunity clause. Where did that come from? Well, maybe stare decisis. That is what they argue. That is where the Court is. Take a peek at that. Yes, go back and read it. You will enjoy it. Here is the deal. They sit right now upset over a few decisions that this Supreme Court has made. They cannot accept that you have probably three conservatives, three liberals, and three in the middle. That is where the Court sits today. An amendment freezing this at nine, first of all, doesn't mean that you can never amend it again, but it also doesn't mean that these are going to be the same nine in perpetuity for eternity. They want to set aside a tradition that has been in place for over 150 years. They make this argument regarding the circuits. Guess what. Those circuits have changed and changed, but oddly enough, we have kept it at nine. Instead, they want to negate and have ignored what their personnel have said for the last few years, ever since Donald J. Trump was reelected, ever since you put some new people on the Court, even though, as we take a look, they are winning cases against this administration. Yet, they say that we have to take and expand this so we can get to 13. That is what they want. Why do they want it? It is because they want to make it progressive. They want to turn the Court around. They want to change its ideological principles or what they perceive to be ideological principles. That is what they want. They want to pack the Court. That is what packing is. It is where you put a number there. That is why Stephen Breyer said and that is why Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, no, don't do that. Justice Breyer said that if you do that and it is 13 next time, does it become 21 after that, or 50, or where does it end, because it becomes a political arms race at the Supreme Court. We are saying not to get into a political arms race. Let's make it permanently nine. Let's give it to the voters. That is a rational thing. It will never be persuasive to these folks, and that is too bad because guess what. This has been comfortable. The Biden administration was comfortable with nine. This particular provision was proposed in the 116th Congress, in the 118th Congress, and now again in the 119th Congress. It didn't matter whether there was a Republican or a Democrat in the White House. What it meant was let's make sure the Supreme Court is protected from those who want to change it ideologically. That is where they are. That is why everyone should be supporting this particular amendment. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Newhouse). The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) that the House suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution, H.J. Res. 1. The question was taken.

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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

Jamie Raskin

Lauren Boebert

Jamie Raskin

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Derek Schmidt

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Jamie Raskin

Jamie Raskin

Andy Biggs