Keep Nine: A Constitutional Firewall Needed Against Future Supreme Court Packing

Leading Democrats Pushing for Future Court Packing

It is increasingly clear that leading Democrats are preparing to make Supreme Court expansion—the old-fashioned term is “court packing”—a central objective of their 2028 agenda. In recent days, both former Attorney General Eric Holder and Democratic strategist James Carville have openly advocated increasing the number of justices if Democrats regain control of Congress and the White House.

Holder recently told Fox News that Democrats “must focus” on expanding the Court or imposing term limits, arguing that the current six-justice conservative majority “has delegitimized itself.” (Fox News, Nov. 7, 2025). The following day, Carville went even further, confidently predicting that “Democrats will win in 2028” and that “Congress will increase Supreme Court justices from nine to thirteen.” (Real Clear Politics, Nov. 8, 2025).

These statements are not idle speculation. They are trial balloons—early signals to test the political winds. Court packing is politically unpopular today, but as 2028 draws closer, Democrats are positioning themselves to normalize it. Their goal is simple: to delegitimize decisions they don’t like and then change the rules to get outcomes they do.

That is why the Keep Nine Amendment matters more than ever. The Keep Nine Amendment is one of the shortest proposed amendments to the Constitution:

“The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine Justices.”

It is just fourteen words. Yet those fourteen words would provide a permanent constitutional firewall protecting the Court’s independence from partisan manipulation. They would prevent any future Congress and president from altering the size of the Supreme Court to secure political advantage.

While Congress has authority to set the number of justices by statute, that power has not been exercised in 150 years. Since 1869, the Court has remained at nine members. Earlier in the Republic, Congress occasionally changed the size of the Court—sometimes to reward allies or punish opponents—but since Reconstruction, a bipartisan tradition has held that the number should stay fixed. That stability has been one of the underpinnings of the judiciary’s independence.

The last major challenge to that principle came in 1937, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to expand the Court to 15 justices after it struck down parts of the New Deal. FDR’s “court-packing plan” was crushed in Congress, with members of both parties recognizing it for what it was: a raw political power grab.

Earlier this year, Representative Dusty Johnson (R–SD) reintroduced his House Joint Resolution to “Keep the Nine.” As Johnson put it, “Calls from the left to ‘pack the court’ are radical attempts to gain a political advantage. The Supreme Court is essential to protecting our republic and keeping our government free and fair.”

The amendment also enjoys support from organizations such as Americans for Prosperity, the National Federation of Republican Women, and the Keep Nine Coalition. Last November, the Maryland Republican Party adopted a resolution formally supporting Keep Nine and calling for the Maryland General Assembly and congressional delegation to do the same. The MDGOP resolution noted that the amendment “would prevent divisive and polarizing attempts by any party or political faction to change the size of the Court” and reaffirmed that “public trust in the U.S. Supreme Court must be guided by legal principle, not politics.”

The resolution also cited polling showing that a strong majority of Americans—68 percent—reject court packing outright, while 61 percent recognize it as purely political and 62 percent believe it threatens civil liberties. These are not partisan numbers. They reflect a broad public understanding that tampering with the Supreme Court’s structure would do lasting damage to the rule of law.

To date, the Keep Nine Amendment remains bottled up in the House Judiciary Committee, with no action taken so far this year. That inaction carries real risk. As the rhetoric of Holder and Carville demonstrates, Democrats are not waiting for 2028 to begin softening the ground. Their message is clear: when they next hold unified control, they will use it to reshape the Supreme Court.

That is why congressional Republicans—and every state legislature concerned with preserving checks and balances—must act now. Opposition to court packing is not enough. Only a constitutional amendment can guarantee the judiciary’s independence for future generations.

Even the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opposed court packing, saying in 2019: “Nine is a good number.”

She was right. And if we want to keep it that way, Congress should act before it’s too late. The time to Keep Nine is now.