Fight Fire With Fire
Have you seen the recent news article about the 7-to-6 U.S. Supreme Court ruling reversing a prior decision and concluding that partisan gerrymandering of U.S. House of Representatives districts is unconstitutional? Of course, you have not because the current number of U.S. Supreme Court justices is set at nine, not 13. But I predict you will see 7-to-6 Court rulings in the not-so-distant future — once the Democrats are back in power.
There is just no other meaningful option left for the country to stop the current extremist rightwing Supreme Court than to expand it to 13 justices and then appoint four new fair-minded and sensible members.
It is time for the Democrats to match Republican audacity with their own audacity. The recent Supreme Court ruling (Louisiana v. Callais), which guts the Voting Rights Act and now allows the South to immediately return to its Jim Crow past, has to be the last straw for Democrats. That ruling confirms that the current Roberts Court is fanatically committed to tilting the law toward one-party, mostly white-corporate, Republican rule.
Expanding the U.S. Supreme Court to 13 justices would be “unprecedented.” But it is no more unprecedented than Republicans preventing President Obama from filling one Court vacancy back in 2016, even though there were 11 months left in his term; and then ramming through a second Court nominee in 2020 when there were only 4 months left in Trump’s first term. Besides, how many times have we heard the term “unprecedented” applied to Trump? Sure, expanding the Court to 13 would be unprecedented, but it would also be perfectly legal. Something that is often not the case with Trump’s unprecedented actions.
Now, imagine a new Supreme Court with a fair and more balanced majority. Such a court could undo at least some of the structural damages inflicted on our democracy in recent years by Trump and his accomplices on the Roberts Court. Think about it, just as the Roberts Court had no hesitation in overturning the nearly 50-year precedent that legalized a woman’s right to choose, nor in undoing the over 60-year Voting Rights Act, a newly expanded U.S. Supreme Court could return the favor. That, in turn, would give us more hopeful Court headlines going forward.
Here is a hypothetical example of a wonderful news flash under a new 13-member Court in the future. “Supreme Court reverses Rucho v. Common Cause; concludes that not only is partisan gerrymandering incompatible with democratic principles as the Roberts Court concluded, but it is also within the Supreme Court’s power to address it.” Here’s another: “Supreme Court once again says American women have the right to control their own bodies; rules that forcing a person to carry a pregnancy to term violates the 14th amendment, which protects personal liberty and bodily autonomy.” And how about, “Court concludes Citizens United ruling was decided wrong; rules the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act was in fact constitutional in preventing corporations and labor unions from funding election communications from their general treasuries.”
It took more than two generations (i.e., 58 years) for the Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision to undo the disgraceful Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that legalized “separate but equal.” This nation can no longer wait that long to start undoing the damage of the current Supreme Court. Call it “packing the Court” if you will, but it is time for Democrats to fight fire with fire.
This article was originally published as a letter to the editor of the Spirit of Jefferson on May 20, 2026.
