PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES TO REQUIRE THAT THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES BE COMPOSED OF NINE JUSTICES

On 2026-09-02, Representative Dusty Johnson (R-SD) delivered a floor speech titled "PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES TO REQUIRE THAT THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES B" in the House.

PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES TO REQUIRE THAT THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES BE COMPOSED OF NINE JUSTICES

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 139 (Wednesday, September 2, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 139 (Wednesday, September 2, 2026)] [House] [Pages H5443-H5452] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES TO REQUIRE THAT THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES BE COMPOSED OF NINE JUSTICES Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 1) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to require that the Supreme Court of the United States be composed of nine justices. The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution. The text of the joint resolution is as follows: H.J. Res. 1 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification: ``Article -- ``The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices consisting of one chief justice and eight associate justices.''. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 1499, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona. General Leave Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 1. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Arizona? There was no objection. Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court's job is to tell the American people the truth about the law, even when that truth is unpopular, even when a President doesn't like it, and even when Congress doesn't like it. That only works if the Court is independent. Alexander Hamilton expressed this in Federalist 78. He explained that the courts must be insulated from the political branches or they cannot do their job of protecting the rights of the people. Disagreeing with the Supreme Court is not just legitimate. It is American. We amend the Constitution, or we pass new laws. We elect Presidents who appoint different judges. That is how you change outcomes you don't like. That is the process the Founders gave us. But there is a world of difference between changing the law and changing the rules of the game because you don't like the last call. Packing the Court is not simply a policy disagreement. It is an attempt to change the structure of one of the three branches of government in order to guarantee the outcome you want. That is not reform. That is revolution. Here is the question every American should ask: If a sitting majority can change the size of the Supreme Court the moment it dislikes rulings, what happens the next time the other side is in power? What stops them from doing the same thing? As Justice Breyer said, this will start an ``arms race.'' Once you go down that road, the Court stops being an independent check on government power. It becomes another political institution controlled by whoever happens to hold the majority. We have already seen what this kind of rhetoric looks like. In 2020, Senator Schumer stood outside the Supreme Court and told Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh: `` . . . you have unleashed a whirlwind, and you will pay the price.'' That was a threat, a threat that goes well beyond any normal policy disagreement. Mr. Speaker, 2 years later, an armed man was arrested outside Justice Kavanaugh's home. Thankfully, law enforcement intervened before anyone was hurt. Words have consequences, and when political leaders convince people that the Supreme Court is illegitimate, some people take that rhetoric seriously. Some on the left aren't even hiding where this leads. The Democratic Socialists of America now openly call for abolishing the Senate and replacing the Presidency and the Supreme Court. I am not making that up. That is in their platform. Seeking to expand the Court is an admission that your arguments have not been good enough to persuade voters or your fellow legislators. We rely on a political process, including robust one-on-one debates, to convince voters that ours are the superior plans. When you can no longer convince enough voters that you have the best ideas, you have two choices: You can go back to voters with a better argument, or you can try to change the system so their vote doesn't matter as much. That is why the amendment before us is so important. It fixes the number of Justices at nine permanently. That is not because nine is a magic number. It is because a fixed Court cannot be expanded by whoever happens to win the next election. It makes the rule the same regardless of who is in power. To my friends on the other side of the aisle: We don't have to like every decision the Supreme Court makes. Heaven knows there are plenty of decisions I have disagreed with. That is not the point. The point is whether we are willing to live under a Constitution that limits our power even when we are the ones holding it. If we want to change the law, we can change the law, but we should not change the Supreme Court simply because we don't like the people sitting on it. Constitutional government requires accepting outcomes we don't like and fighting for change the right way: through elections, through legislation, and through the amendment process this very body is using today. Let's keep the Supreme Court independent. Let's keep it at nine Justices, and let's keep the Constitution bigger than whoever happens to be in power. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. In this 119th Congress we have watched the President's followers in Congress surrender to the President one constitutional power after another. Amazingly, the Speaker and the MAGA party have abdicated nearly every single essential power that the Framers exclusively vested in us, Congress, the Representatives of the people. First is the power to declare war, which has been usurped by the President with catastrophic results for the country and without a peep from his sycophants in Congress. Next is the spending power, the power of the purse, the power to appropriate Federal dollars to spending and grant programs and to specify their purposes, powers that have been continually violated in acts of impoundment, nullification, and redirection by the President who has not only effectively shut down the Department of Education, USAID, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but has even helped himself, without any appropriation from Congress, to $1.8 billion of taxpayer money to give away to Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other convicted insurrectionists who attacked this body in order to try to overthrow a Presidential election in January of 2021; Next is the power to impose tariffs and taxes and the power to regulate [[Page H5444]] commerce with foreign nations, powers that have been ripped away from us without any protests from the majority so the President could launch preposterous trade wars against the world and aggressively insult and alienate our beloved neighbor and democratic ally Canada. They have abandoned even the power to decide whether or not the President should receive Presidential emoluments, gifts, payments from foreign governments as he piles up a pirate's treasure of hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts from foreign autocracies and monarchies. They have abandoned the unquestioned exclusive congressional power of Congress to build and exercise control over needful buildings and structures for the national government like the White House; the Reflecting Pool, which they are now calling the strait of warm ooze; and The Kennedy Center. All of these structures are being bulldozed, demolished, desecrated with Presidential graffiti, and renovated according to unilateral and independent executive decisions without even congressional consultation--all for the first time in American history. They are dangerously ceding our power to regulate the times, places, and manner of Federal elections conducted in the States to the post office and to our monarchically minded President who has no constitutional role in elections and was impeached by this Chamber for inciting a violent insurrection to try to overthrow an election, which he lost by more than 7 million votes, 306-232 in the electoral college. So what constitutional power do our colleagues propose to surrender today? Well, it is just a power that Congress has had since the beginning of the Republic under Article III, Section 1: the power to define the composition of the Supreme Court and the number of Justices who serve there. Over the course of our history, Congress has exercised this authority seven different times by changing the number of Justices on the Court. With the Judiciary Act of 1789, Congress established the first Court with six Justices. In 1801, President Adams and Congress shrank it to five Justices. When President Jefferson won in 1800 and came back to power, then it was back to six Justices. In 1807, Congress expanded it to seven Justices when it created the Seventh Circuit, keeping to the congressional tradition of one Justice per Federal Circuit. In 1837, Congress expanded the number of Federal Circuits to nine and then added the corresponding two seats to the Court, bringing the Court to nine Justices. In 1863, Congress briefly added a 10th Federal Circuit during the Civil War 

Referenced legislation: HJRES1, HJRES1, HJRES95, HRES1499