House Rejects GOP Power Grab to Cement Right-Wing Supreme Court at Nine Justices
Select a version of the text written from a presumed ideological perspective. This is not the original text, but a hypothetical version — how someone with that viewpoint might have phrased it. Tapping the current version again will return to the original or select cleaned version.
In a close vote, the House blocked a Republican-led constitutional amendment aimed at locking the Supreme Court at nine justices, a move widely seen as an attempt to preserve the current conservative majority and undermine democratic checks on judicial power.
On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly defeated a joint resolution that would have amended the Constitution to permanently fix the Supreme Court at nine justices. The measure, spearheaded by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), garnered 212 votes in favor and 206 against—falling short of the two-thirds supermajority required for such a fundamental change.
The amendment, which would have enshrined nine justices as the permanent size of the Court, was justified by Biggs as a way to prevent future expansions by any party. However, critics see this as a transparent attempt by Republicans to lock in their current ideological advantage and block any future efforts to rebalance a Court that has increasingly served corporate and reactionary interests.
"It fixes the number of justices at nine permanently, not because nine is a magic number, but because a fixed court cannot be expanded by whoever happens to win the next election," Biggs claimed, ignoring the historical precedent of adjusting the Court’s size to reflect the needs of the nation.
House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed right-wing fears, calling the nine-seat limit "critically important" and warning that expanding the bench could turn the judiciary into a "political palooza"—as if the current Court, stacked by partisan maneuvering, is not already deeply politicized.
Democratic leaders rightly opposed the amendment, arguing that it would strip Congress of its constitutional authority to determine the Court’s size. Rep. Katherine Clark, the House Democratic Whip, highlighted the GOP’s ongoing efforts to cede Congressional powers to the executive and now to the judiciary, further eroding democratic accountability.
"This Republican majority — which has already surrendered Congressional war powers, Congressional taxing and tariff powers, and Congressional spending powers to President Trump — would now permanently relinquish the power to set the number of Supreme Court Justices, given to Congress in Article I of the Constitution," Clark’s statement read.
Progressive voices pointed to proposals from the Democratic Socialists of America to democratize the judiciary and called attention to calls from within the Democratic caucus, such as Rep. James Clyburn’s, to expand the Court to better reflect the diversity of the country. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, argued that the vote exposes Republican anxieties about losing their grip on power.
"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," Raskin said, exposing the GOP’s true motives.
Amending the Constitution remains a high bar, requiring a two-thirds vote in both chambers and ratification by three-fourths of the states—a safeguard against such anti-democratic maneuvers.