Court Expansion

On January 30, 2026, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed a bill expanding the state’s Supreme Court from five to seven justices. The Republican-controlled legislature passed it on a party-line vote. After filling the new seats, Cox will have appointed five of the seven justices on Utah’s highest court. This is the same Republican Party that calls expanding the U.S. Supreme Court “unconstitutional,” “radical court packing,” and “a direct assault on our Constitution.” ...

Court Expansion: Actually Normal in American History Whenever reform is discussed, critics cry that changing the Court would be “radical” or “unprecedented.” This is historically illiterate nonsense. The Supreme Court’s size has changed seven times in the nation’s first 80 years. The Judiciary Act of 1789 created a six-member Court. It grew to seven members in 1807, nine in 1837, ten in 1863, back to seven in 1866, and finally to nine in 1869. For most of American history, the Court’s size tracked with the number of federal circuit courts. But here’s what critics never mention: while the Supreme Court has remained frozen at nine justices since 1869, the rest of the federal judiciary has continued to grow dramatically to meet the nation’s needs. ...

Something has shifted in how Democrats talk about the Supreme Court — and it’s about time. For years, court reform was treated as a fringe idea. Expand the Court? Too radical. Term limits? Too destabilizing. A binding ethics code? Maybe, someday, if we can find the votes. The conventional wisdom held that the Court, however flawed, was too sacred an institution to touch with structural changes. That conventional wisdom is crumbling. And the redistricting and voting rights rulings of the past few months are exactly why. ...