Packing the Supreme Court is no longer a fringe idea

But is it a good idea?

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May 20, 2026 2:30pm EDT

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As Democrats have piled up Supreme Court losses over the past decade-plus — on voting rights, abortion, presidential immunity, and on and on — they’ve increasingly talked about needing to reform the Court. Their prescriptions have run the gamut, but one of the most extreme is becoming surprisingly mainstream: court-packing — adding justices to the bench to change its ideological balance.

In his new piece, Ian Millhiser describes why relative moderates like Kamala Harris came to embrace an idea that, for decades previously, was seen as a nuclear option. He also explains why, even if it achieves some short-term gains, court-packing would pose immense risks to both Democratic and small-d democratic power.

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—Seth Maxon, politics, policy, and ideas editor