House Preserves Right To Manufacture Unlimited Supreme Court Justices
The House preserved America’s constitutional right to manufacture Supreme Court justices without a detectable upper limit Wednesday, rejecting H.J. Res. 1, an amendment that would have fixed the Court at nine members. The proposal received 212 votes to 206 but fell short of the two-thirds majority required for constitutional amendments, sparing the nation from the administrative nightmare of knowing how many justices it has.
Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona sponsored the measure, which threatened to freeze the judicial workforce at a dangerously comprehensible number. Democrats overwhelmingly opposed it, defending Congress’s traditional authority to expand the Court until every major donor, cable-news contributor and moderately persuasive podcast host receives chambers, clerks and a lifetime appointment. Supporters countered that nine justices are sufficient because the country has successfully maintained that number since 1869, when Americans still believed settled rules would remain settled after an unfavorable election.
Speaker Mike Johnson warned that leaving the Court’s size to Congress could expose ordinary families to severe justice inflation. “Nine becomes eleven, eleven becomes fifty, and before long every American household will be legally required to provide three unelected federal judges with a guest room, breakfast and lifetime security,” Johnson said, calmly outlining the constitutional emergency. With roughly 340 million Americans and only nine justices, each member of the Court must already govern nearly 38 million people while reviewing briefs, issuing opinions and remembering which billionaire owns which yacht.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland noted that the Constitution leaves the Court’s size to Congress, preserving lawmakers’ sacred ability to answer unpopular rulings by ordering additional robes. Only one Democrat, North Carolina Rep. Don Davis, supported the amendment, recklessly suggesting that nine people might be enough to interpret a document Congress has spent generations citing selectively. The amendment’s defeat guarantees that whenever Americans lose confidence in the Supreme Court, Washington can continue providing the nation’s only proven constitutional remedy: more Washington.
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