Jeffries All But Admits He Supports Packing The Supreme Court
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is signaling support for notable reforms to the Supreme Court, including court-packing, which involves adding more justices to shift ideological balance. During an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Jeffries avoided directly endorsing court-packing but emphasized the need for ethical standards and reforms, including criticizing recent rulings like Louisiana v. Callais. Notably,he indicated that prominent Democrats such as Jamie Raskin and Hank Johnson-who openly support increasing the number of Supreme Court justices-would led the push for such reforms. These Democrats have sponsored legislation to expand the court from nine to thirteen justices and oppose efforts to maintain the court’s current size. jeffries’s evasive responses and his delegation of reform efforts to known court-packing advocates suggest that his comments serve as a facade, masking the Democrats’ true intentions to alter the court’s composition if they regain power. Historically, Democrats have viewed the Supreme Court as a tool to impose their policies through activist rulings rather than constitutional amendments, and with the current court overturning some of those precedents, Democrats appear committed to expanding the court to secure favorable outcomes.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is trying to play coy on whether he’ll support packing the Supreme Court with left-wing activists if Democrats retake control of the federal government. But it’s obvious from his comments on the subject that is exactly what he’ll do.
Appearing on NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday, Jeffries was asked by Democrat-loving host Kristen Welker if he backs adding more justices to the high court. Welker cited recent comments Jeffries made days prior touting his support for “dramatic Supreme Court reform,” as well as remarks from former Vice President Kamala Harris, who signaled her support for court-packing.
Naturally, Jeffries avoided directly answering the question.
He first began by characterizing “dramatic reform” as “making sure that the Supreme Court actually has an ethical code of conduct so that they’re not able to simply conduct themselves in ways that are inconsistent with the notion in this country that no one is above the law.” This included giving a shoutout to his corporate media allies’ dishonest hatchet jobs against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to bolster his faulty argument.
Upon discussing the “broad reforms” Democrats have in store, Jeffries pivoted to smearing the high court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision kneecapping racial considerations in redistricting. He claimed the Callais majority was “do[ing] the bidding of extreme MAGA Republicans who turned around in the deep south” and “unleashed … Jim Crow-like tactics” by undertaking colorblind redistricting.
The New York Democrat furthermore contended that the ruling is “inconsistent with the law and with the Constitution,” but predictably didn’t bother explaining how.
Although his remarks appear vague on the surface, Jeffries actually gave the game away in his closing comment to Welker. After he finished his anti-Callais screed, the House minority leader pledged that Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and other leading Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee “are going to take the lead on what dramatic reform of the Supreme Court looks like.”
The reason that sentence is significant is that leading Judiciary Democrats like Raskin and Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., are some of the party’s biggest court-packing supporters.
Raskin and Johnson have both sponsored legislation that seeks to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court from nine to 13, which conveniently adds the four seats needed for leftists to acquire an ideological majority. Both congressmen have also run interference for court-packing during committee discussions on the subject and recently opposed a constitutional amendment to keep the court at nine justices.
If Jeffries doesn’t support Democrats’ court-packing efforts, then why didn’t he explicitly say so when asked by Welker? And if he opposes such a plan, why would he put two of the party’s most ardent court-packing supporters in charge of this “reform”?
The questions answer themselves.
[RELATED:[RELATED:Vulnerable House Dems Refuse To Say If They’ll Back Anti-Court-Packing Amendment]
What Jeffries is doing is no different than what Joe Biden did in 2020 or what Abigail Spanberger did last year. It’s an attempt to deceive voters with a “moderate”-sounding position, with every intention of governing hard-left once given power.
The left has long viewed the Supreme Court as a mechanism of power meant to bypass the constitutional amendment process. Rather than convince their fellow Americans to support their policies, leftists used activist justices on the high court to enshrine their agenda into law via overreaching rulings.
With the current court largely working to overturn many of those bad precedents, that path is no longer available to the left. As such, Democrats have taken to launching a full-out assault on the conservative justices — all in an effort to get the outcomes they want.
Jeffries may think he’s being coy enough with his language to obscure his party’s ultimate endgame. In reality, his remarks are further affirmation of how destructive Democrats plan to be if given power this fall.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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