Senate Democrats Divided Over House Democrats’ Plan to Expand SCOTUS

As House Democrats tout a renewed effort to expand the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), Senate Democrats remain divided on both the feasibility and value of the scheme.

The plan, contained in Rep. Hank Johnson’s (D-Ga.) Judiciary Act, would add four new seats to SCOTUS.

The renewed push to pack the bill comes in the wake of SCOTUS’ landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which it overturned the abortion standard put in place by Roe v. Wade in 1973. The 6–3 decision was supported by all of the court’s six conservative justices and opposed by the three liberals on the court.

Following that decision, SCOTUS’ conservative justices also struck down a New York State gun control law that it deemed unconstitutional, in addition to a decision that severely constricted the scope of carbon regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency.

This string of conservative decisions, particularly the decision in Dobbs, has left Democrats scrambling for solutions to weaken the power of the court’s conservatives.

During a July 18 press conference, several progressive Democrats in the House renewed calls to expand SCOTUS and add four new seats, a scheme that critics have long referred to as “court-packing.”

Democrats insisted that they were not packing the court, but that conservatives had already done so under President Donald Trump, likely a jab at then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) refusal to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death. Later, McConnell also quickly moved forward with the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, even going so far as to change filibuster rules to ensure her confirmation in the GOP-controlled Senate.

“The nightmare scenario of GOP court-packing is already upon us,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.). “That’s how they got this far-right 6–3 majority in the

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