The question of **Should SCOTUS have fewer justices?** just became a part of the mainstream political discourse, and not for the reasons many might have anticipated.
This past Sunday, Congressman Jim Clyburn appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker, stepping into the fraught territory of Supreme Court reform. For years, the Democratic party has toyed with — and often outright advocated for — the expansion of the Supreme Court, a response to what many perceive as its increasingly partisan bent and conservative supermajority. Vice President Kamala Harris, among others, has been a vocal proponent of adding seats to the bench.
Clyburn’s appearance, however, marked a curious pivot. Rather than reiterating the familiar call for court expansion, he introduced a truly novel approach to “reform,” one that fundamentally alters the terms of the debate.
What landed
Welker, quite naturally, pressed Clyburn on whether he aligned with the party’s more prominent voices, specifically former Vice President Harris’s known desire for court expansion. It was a direct question, and Clyburn’s response was, if nothing else, a strategic re-framing. Instead of endorsing the existing Democratic platform, the Congressman effectively proposed the opposite: a reduction in the number of Supreme Court justices.
While the precise contours of his proposal remained somewhat vague, the essence was clear. Clyburn suggested that the current nine-justice structure might be part of the problem, implying that a smaller, perhaps more focused, court could be less susceptible to the political pressures that currently plague it. This wasn’t merely a rejection of expansion; it was an active embrace of contraction. The veteran legislator seemed to be searching for a way to address the perceived politicization of the court without engaging in the politically charged act of “court packing,” which has consistently faced strong public and bipartisan opposition. His remarks, as reported by Crooks and Liars, have undeniably brought this alternative concept of shrinking the court into the mainstream Democratic conversation, however unexpected it may be.
What doesn’t add up
The most glaring issue, of course, is the stark departure from what has long been the dominant Democratic position on judicial reform. For years, figures like Kamala Harris have called for *expanding* the court, arguing it’s necessary to restore balance and mitigate the impact of what they view as illegitimate appointments. Clyburn’s gambit to *shrink* it is directly counter to this, presenting a rather disorienting internal contradiction within the party’s proposed solutions. One might wonder if this latest gambit is a genuine policy shift or a desperate search for a viable talking point, given the political toxicity surrounding court expansion.
This isn’t just a difference in nuance; it’s a fundamental disagreement on the direction of reform. While Clyburn’s suggestion might be seen by some as a less overtly partisan approach than “packing,” it still fundamentally alters the judiciary in a way that would require a Herculean legislative effort and face immediate, ferocious opposition. It also conveniently sidesteps the underlying grievances that spurred the court expansion movement in the first place, offering a solution that might be less confrontational rhetorically but equally disruptive in practice. The interview, therefore, revealed less a coherent party strategy and more a desperate attempt to find *any* path forward on judicial reform, even if it means directly contradicting previous, heavily promoted positions. It leaves one skeptical whether this is a considered policy proposal or simply a trial balloon launched to gauge public reaction to a less politically charged alternative to “packing.”
Come Monday morning, the Democratic party finds itself in an even more fractured position on Supreme Court reform. No longer is the debate simply about *whether* to expand the court, but now also about whether to contract it. This internal dissonance risks paralyzing any genuine effort at reform and provides ample ammunition for opponents to highlight the party’s lack of a unified vision for the nation’s highest judicial body.
Source: OnTheRecord