Hillary Clinton thinks we should have 13 Supreme Court justices. Here’s why that matters.

Hillary Clinton may no longer be the most influential voice in the Democratic Party, but she remains a member in good standing of the party establishment. So when she expresses support for expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court, it tells us that what was once a radical idea has gone mainstream.

“We should seriously look at expanding the court while the Democrats are in power,” Clinton said on a recent podcast. “You know, it used to be that you’d have one justice for each circuit. We now have 13 circuits, we should have 13 justices.”

Adding four justices to the court is just one of the potential reforms that have been suggested as a way of curbing the court’s abuses. Others include 18-year term limits for justices, ethics rules with actual teeth (no more billionaire-funded junkets for you, Justice Thomas) and limits on the court’s ability to strike down any law they don’t like. Whichever particular reforms one prefers, it is no longer acceptable for a Democrat to simply decry the latest awful ruling. They have to be willing to entertain fundamental change to the institution.

This shift in Democrats’ thinking is as remarkable as it is recent. Five years ago, Sen. Ed Markey introduced a bill to do just what Clinton and others now favor, adding four justices to the court; it got only two co-sponsors, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith. Joe Biden responded to demands for court reform with Washington’s favorite way of burying an issue: He appointed a commission to study it. They produced a lengthy white paper, but it wasn’t until July 2024 — after he pulled out of the presidential race — that Biden finally endorsed term limits and an enforceable ethics code.

The situation today is far different. Supreme Court reform will almost certainly be part of the 2028 Democratic platform, and just about every politician considering a presidential bid has already come out for at least some version of reform.

The list of potential contenders who have endorsed court expansion — perhaps the most radical of the proposed reforms — is long and getting longer. It includes Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Rep. Ro Khanna and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Term limits have been endorsed by Sens. Chris Murphy, Cory Booker and Elissa Slotkin, along with Gov. Andy Beshear. Other potential candidates, including Sen. Raphael Warnock and Govs. Josh Shapiro and JB Pritzker, are taking the “everything should be on the table” approach, not saying specifically what they’re for — which suggests they’re waiting to see what the voters demand. Pressure will only keep building.

What changed? The most important factor is the court’s own behavior. There are the monumental decisions: overturning Roe v. Wade, gutting the Voting Rights Act, eliminating any meaningful restrictions on billionaires pouring money into campaigns, outlawing affirmative action in education and giving the president immunity from prosecution for crimes, among other things. Taken together, the court’s conservative majority is so obviously pursuing its own partisan political project: to remake the law and the structure of the federal government in line with their personal preferences. Yet the justices pretend that they and only they are truly committed to the framers’ intentions and the text of the Constitution.

“We are not part of any political movement, and we are not attempting to further any political agenda,” said Samuel Alito, the most partisan justice on the court. “People think we’re making policy decisions,” lamented Chief Justice Roberts earlier this year, when nothing could be further from the truth. So says the man who has steered the court’s stampede to the right, including achieving his lifelong goal of destroying the Voting Rights Act.

Even Elena Kagan, the most conciliatory of the liberal justices, said in a recent speech that the court’s decisions rubber-stamping partisan gerrymandering showed “a lack of the appropriate concern or understanding of the consequences of their decisions.” With all due respect, Kagan was mistaken: They know exactly what the consequences of their decisions are. That’s why they rule the way they do.

So thanks to the conservative justices, Democrats are moving toward a consensus on court reform. There is no left versus center division within the party on whether the court’s decisions have or haven’t created a crisis. The only question is what should be done about that crisis. Anyone wanting to lead the party is going to have to be willing to take on this court and rebalance the scales. If they don’t, their constituents won’t stand for it.

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