by Misty Severi
House Democrats blocked a proposed Constitutional amendment on Wednesday, which would have capped the Supreme Court at nine justices if it had secured the two-thirds majority it needed to pass.
The vote, which failed in a 212-206 split, comes as calls to pack the court have grown in recent years, largely due to the success of Republicans in confirming conservative justices to the bench, who have gone on to rule in landmark cases favoring the right.
Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs proposed the amendment, which called for amending the Constitution to say: “The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices consisting of one chief justice and eight associate justices.”
Massachusetts House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark’s office urged fellow liberal lawmakers to vote “no,” saying it would take away a power intended for Congress and does nothing to address the “affordability crisis” under President Donald Trump.
“This proposed constitutional amendment would permanently fix the number of Supreme Court justices at nine, stripping Congress of yet another constitutional authority that is meant to be controlled by the American people’s representatives,” Clark’s office wrote to lawmakers ahead of the vote.
The vote comes after the House passed a resolution that condemned socialism on Tuesday, which saw eight centrist Democrats cross the political aisle to support the measure.
Rep. Mike Bost, who voted in favor of the amendment, said, “Democrat Socialists all over the country are winning their primaries on the promise of ‘packing’ the U.S. Supreme Court. We saw this movie before, when FDR crushed his party’s chances at the ballot box in 1938 after trying to expand the number of justices on the Court.”
“That’s why I voted today in support of an amendment to keep the Supreme Court at nine justices. Incredibly, all but one Democrat voted no. Some lessons of history are learned the hard way,” he added.
Rep. Clay Fuller, another supporter of the amendment, noted he was “proud to have voted today to preserve the Supreme Court’s nine-Justice structure, a system that has been in place since 1869.”
“Democrats are working to do everything in their power to dismantle the fabric of our nation. We will not allow communists to pack the Court,” he explained.
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Misty Severi is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
