Democratic Efforts to Reform Supreme Court Face Setbacks Amid Partisan Tensions

The attempt to preserve the makeup of the country’s top court was already a long shot: GOP Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona’s proposal was a constitutional amendment that required two-thirds of the chamber to approve. Even if the proposal had passed the chamber, it faced similarly long odds in the Senate and would have then needed to be ratified by 38 of the 50 U.S. states. But the attempt fell at the first hurdle in the House, with a 212-206 vote.

Still, the effort has put the Supreme Court—which Democrats have recently targeted over the conservative leanings of its decisions—firmly in the spotlight ahead of the November midterms. The Supreme Court may have bucked President Donald Trump’s agenda in tariffs and birthright citizenship, but it equally handed him victories in federal elections, his attempts to remake the capital, and his Administration’s enforcement of a robust anti-immigration agenda.

But Democrats claim the conservative-led court’s latest rulings show it’s pandering to politics instead of law. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland dismissed the proposal to cap the number of Supreme Court judges as “another partisan power grab by MAGA, our colleagues who fear for the results in the November election.”

Democrats’ criticisms coincide with signs of negative public opinion about the Supreme Court, with a July 2026 Washington Post-Ipsos poll showing that 46% of Americans believe the court is ruling on Trump’s policies based on ideology rather than the law.

“I think, at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, we’re saying we think this is how things should be, as opposed to what the law provides,” said Chief Justice John Roberts at an event in May. “I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do.”

The past few months have nonetheless seen Democratic lawmakers proposing other ways to revamp the court in an attempt to weed out partisan politics and rein in judicial powers. Here are some of those efforts:

The U.S. Constitution does not state how many Justices make up the Supreme Court, and the number of seats has changed over time, from as few as five Justices to as many as 10. Since 1869, however, the court has had nine authorized seats for Justices.

Since 2021, some Democrats have attempted to increase the number of Justices. In April that year, four Democrats introduced a bill envisioning a 13-Justice Supreme Court, claiming it “would restore balance to the nation’s highest court after four years of norm-breaking actions by Republicans.” Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in the 2024 presidential election, also said that Democrats should have a “real conversation” about changing institutions, including “expanding” the court.

“I think that we are in a position now that calls for some significant actions taken by the Congress, and we ought to expand—and 13 is a pretty good number,” Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina said in an interview with NBC News last month. “A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the court. And I would hope we would get people on the court who will follow the constitutional underpinnings of this great nation of ours.”

The bill also states that only the nine most recently appointed Justices on the bench would rule on cases under the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. A Justice will spend about 18 years participating in those cases, after which the Justice would be limited to hearing original jurisdiction cases and performing other duties.

“Term limits and regular appointments would make the Court more representative of everyday Americans and help restore the Supreme Court to the proper independent body it was created to be,” Whitehouse said.

Democrats have since introduced a handful of bills in hopes of restoring confidence in the judiciary. One bill sought to ban federal judges from receiving gifts valued over $50 in an instance or $100 in total per year per source save for specific exceptions, and a bill also seeks to require Justices and other members of the judiciary—as well as their spouses and children—to put certain assets in blind trusts.

The Supreme Court has also been accused of “abusing” what is called the “shadow docket”—the docket which the Trump Administration has resorted to in seeking emergency relief in cases challenging the President’s agenda. The Trump Administration has applied for dozens of emergency appeals before the Supreme Court, and the court has, in most cases, ruled in the Administration’s favor. Rep. Raskin has introduced a bill that would require the Supreme Court to issue public legal justification for certain orders issued from this docket.