As Major Rulings Near, Members Clash Over Expanding Supreme Court

Amid partisan controversies over the Supreme Court’s slew of recent decisions, members of the House of Representatives are considering whether to expand the number of seats to change its ideological makeup.

The Court ruled in April to limit a section of the Voting Rights Act that is applied to redistricting cases, making it harder to challenge maps based only on discriminatory outcomes rather than proving stronger evidence of discrimination.

In the coming months, rulings are expected on various issues, including state laws targeting transgender athletes and President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship executive order, among others.

The Committee on the Judiciary is now debating "court packing," which would expand the number of Supreme Court justices in an attempt to balance out the court’s conservative majority opinion.

Chairman and Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) said the Court has always and will continue to remain a court of independent decision.

“The court has delivered wins and losses for both political parties, not just throughout history, but throughout the last nearly two years,” Rep. Issa said.

But, Rep. Henry Johnson (D-GA) said the recent rulings by the Court say otherwise.

“Today's blatant attempt to rewrite history would be laughable if the consequences were not so dangerous for our democracy, but history matters,” Rep. Johnson said.

Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) agreed that history does matter, pointing to the last time Congress “stopped playing games” about the Court by expanding it in 1869 to nine justices, which he noted was six years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

“What I'm hearing is that Democrats want to go back to slavery era politics with respect to the Supreme Court makeup,” Rep. Gooden said.

Rep. Gooden also quoted former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said court packing would “make the court look partisan.” He also quoted former President Joe Biden, who called the concept a “bonehead idea.”

“So I really appreciate my Republican colleagues for not pushing this slavery era idea that was last successful during the slavery days that I think we're trying to move past,” Rep. Gooden said.