The House Votes 212-206 to Write Nine Justices Into the Constitution — Nowhere Near the Two-Thirds It Needed, With Exactly One Democrat Voting Yes and Jim Clyburn Answering That "a Baker's Dozen Would Be a Good Number"

September 2, 2026

On September 2, 2026 the House voted 212-206 on H.J. Res. — the "Keep Nine Amendment" offered by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) — a proposed constitutional amendment reading that "The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices consisting of one chief justice and eight associate justices." A constitutional amendment needs two-thirds of the chamber, so a six-vote margin was not close; the resolution failed. The vote was the second of two messaging votes House Republican leaders scheduled in the run-up to the November midterms, paired with the resolution condemning socialism that passed 220-192 the day before. The premise of both was the same: force Democrats onto the record and use the answer in ads. On this one it worked in the narrow sense — every Republican voted yes and all but one Democrat voted no. Rep. Don Davis (D-NC), who represents a competitive eastern North Carolina district, was the lone Democratic yes. What the vote also documented is how far court expansion has traveled inside the Democratic Party since 2020. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the former majority whip and about as institutional a Democrat as the House has, said on the record that Congress "ought to expand" the Court and that thirteen justices would be "a pretty good number." Democratic leaders framed their opposition in structural terms instead — House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) argued the amendment would strip Congress of an authority the Constitution assigns it — while Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking Democrat on Judiciary, said plainly that the point was to lock in "the political court that MAGA built."