House Democrats are nuking Republicans' effort to assuage one of President Donald Trump's biggest concerns about the future of the federal government.A vote on a constitutional amendment to cap the number of Supreme Court justices failed on Wednesday afternoon after the vast majority of Democrats voted against it.Trump has warned for months that he believes Democrats would seek to expand the Supreme Court if they took back control of Congress — something affirmed by top progressives, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen.Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.House GOP leaders sought to head that off with a proposed amendment led by Rep.
Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., that would mandate that just nine justices can sit on the high court.KAMALA HARRIS BACKS MAJOR CHANGES TO THE SUPREME COURT, ELECTORAL COLLEGE AHEAD OF POSSIBLE 2028 CAMPAIGNSpeaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks at a press conference with other members of House Republican leadership in Washington, D.C.on May 6, 2025.
(Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., opted to fast-track the legislation past multiple procedural hurdles in exchange for raising the threshold for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds, a maneuver known as "suspending the rules." But it failed to clinch that number, even though the majority of House lawmakers supported the amendment.The U.S.Constitution allows Congress to set the number of seats on the Supreme Court bench, which is currently occupied by eight justices and one chief justice.However, the Constitution itself does not dictate how many justices can exist.
Republicans argued that changing that could make it much harder for a Democrat government to pack the court in the future in order to stack the judicial odds in its favor.CARVILLE TELLS DEMS TO QUIETLY PREPARE POWER GRAB WITH DC, PUERTO RICO STATEHOOD AND SUPREME COURT PACKING"Here's the question every American should ask: if a sitting majority can change the size of the Supreme ...