House progressives have put it in writing. A resolution introduced June 24 by Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, calls on Democrats to eliminate the Senate's 60-vote filibuster threshold and enact "structural changes to the Supreme Court," including expanding the number of justices, the moment they regain power. President Trump responded with back-to-back warnings on Truth Social, telling Republicans that if Democrats carry out the plan, "the Republican Party is DEAD!"
The resolution, co-sponsored by Reps. Yvette Clarke, Adriano Espaillat, Grace Meng, Hank Johnson, and Kweisi Mfume, has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. It stands no chance in the current Republican-controlled House, where the GOP holds a 218, 212 majority. But the document matters less for what it can accomplish today than for what it reveals about where the Democratic Party's activist wing intends to go tomorrow.
And tomorrow may not be far off. Generic congressional ballot averages from Silver Bulletin show Democrats leading Republicans by roughly 48 percent to 42 percent. RealClearPolling puts the spread at approximately 49, 43. Democrats need to flip only a handful of seats to seize the House. The midterm general election falls on November 3, about four months away.
The language is blunt. Newsweek reported the resolution calls for action "under the next prodemocracy governing moment," including "the elimination of the 60-vote threshold in the Senate" and "enacting structural changes to the Supreme Court, taking into consideration a wide range of reforms, such as establishing a binding judicial code of ethics for Supreme Court Justices, term limits for Supreme Court Justices, and expanding the size of the Supreme Court."
That phrase, "prodemocracy governing moment", deserves a second look. It frames the elimination of a 157-year-old Senate safeguard and the restructuring of a co-equal branch of government as acts of democratic restoration. The filibuster has required 60 votes to invoke cloture for decades. The Supreme Court has seated nine justices since 1869. Tearing up both arrangements the moment your side wins a slim majority is a curious definition of democracy.
The resolution also targets the Supreme Court's 6, 3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, handed down in April, which concluded that Louisiana's creation of a second majority-Black congressional district went too far in relying on race, raising constitutional concerns under the Equal Protection Clause. The resolution claims the ruling "effectively gutted what remained of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965." That characterization is the sponsors' own. It is not an established legal consensus.
The Supreme Court's docket is already loaded with blockbuster cases on firearms, religious liberty, parental rights, and voter integrity. Progressives are not simply unhappy with one ruling. They are unhappy with the trajectory of the court itself, and the resolution makes that plain.
Trump posted his first warning on Friday, linking to a Politico report on the Casar resolution. He wrote: "The Dumocrats [sic] are openly stating that they plan to TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER if they ever take power, and EXPAND THE SUPREME COURT." He added that if Republicans fail to act, Democrats "will TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER in their first hour, and I'll be sitting home with tears in my eyes saying, 'I TOLD YOU SO!'"
On Sunday he returned to the subject, sharing the same Politico report and writing simply: "They do this, and the Republican Party is DEAD!"
Trump's urgency is understandable. The three justices he appointed during his first term, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, gave conservatives a 6, 3 majority that has reshaped American law on everything from administrative-state overreach to voting rights. Packing the court with additional seats would neutralize that majority overnight.
Newsweek noted, however, that Trump himself has repeatedly called for ending the legislative filibuster, including during government funding negotiations in his first term. That history gives Democrats a rhetorical foothold, and it complicates the GOP message. The difference, of course, is that Trump never paired filibuster elimination with a plan to restructure the judiciary. The Casar resolution does both in the same breath.
Public opinion on expanding the Supreme Court is split down the middle. A Marquette Law School poll conducted May 20, 26 surveyed 1,001 adults and found 50 percent in favor of adding justices and 50 percent opposed, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
That even split should trouble conservatives more than it comforts them. A decade ago, court packing was a fringe idea associated with FDR's failed 1937 gambit. Now half the country is open to it. The progressive caucus didn't create that shift by accident. Years of messaging, casting the current court as illegitimate, partisan, and "extreme", have moved the needle.
The resolution itself is backed by Black, Hispanic, and progressive caucus chairs. It is not part of the official Democratic Party platform. But platforms are written by committees. Resolutions are written by the people who set the party's direction when the cameras are off.
The Supreme Court has recently backed the Trump administration's authority on immigration enforcement, and the conservative majority has delivered wins on issues from protections for female athletes to executive power. Every one of those victories gives progressives another reason to pursue structural changes. The resolution is not a response to one bad ruling. It is a response to a court that keeps ruling against the left's policy preferences.
Primary elections have taken place across the country in recent weeks, with additional contests running through September. The midterm landscape favors Democrats on the generic ballot. If the House flips and Democrats later recapture the Senate and the White House, the Casar resolution is a roadmap, not a fantasy.
Trump is right that Republicans should take the threat seriously. The resolution's sponsors said the quiet part out loud: they want to strip the Senate minority of its leverage and remake the Supreme Court in a single legislative push. That is not governance. It is institutional capture.
The resolution has little chance of advancing now. But "now" is a short window. The question is whether Republicans will treat this as a campaign talking point or as a structural threat that demands a structural response, before Democrats get the votes to make it real.
When the other side puts its plans in a formal House resolution, you don't get to act surprised when they follow through.