Kamala Harris says Democrats should expand the Supreme Court and push statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico if they retake Congress, moves critics warn would lock in partisan power.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris told a podcast audience that Democrats should enlarge the Supreme Court and advance statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico if the party regains control of Congress.
The remarks, aired on the “Baby, This Is Keke Palmer” podcast posted Tuesday, put institutional redesign at the center of the Democratic project heading into the midterms, even as House leaders sell an affordability message to voters.
Just the News reported that Harris framed court expansion and new statehood as top goals if Democrats take back the House, and that she also raised changing the Electoral College in the same discussion of party priorities.
Harris did not hedge on the court.
On the podcast she stated her position in plain terms, and the New York Post carried the fuller exchange with host Keke Palmer.
Harris said:
"I believe that we need to expand the Supreme Court. We need more justices on the Supreme Court so that we can have a court that actually reinforces the spirit and principles behind the Constitution of the United States."
She added that if members of Congress want it, Democrats should push statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.
Harris said:
"If the folks [in Congress] want it, we should push for statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C."
Nine justices have sat on the Supreme Court since 1869. Attorney Y. David Scharf warned that treating expansion as a cure for unfavorable rulings revises the rules of democracy and sets a dangerous precedent, noting Franklin Roosevelt’s court-packing drive met resistance inside his own party and that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cautioned that expansion would look partisan.
Readers tracking the institution already know the stakes from recent fights, including when the Supreme Court again blocked Democrats in an FCC campaign-ad dispute.
Harris is not alone inside Democratic ranks.
Veteran strategist James Carville told party members that if Democrats win both chambers and then the White House in 2028, they should act on day one.
Carville said they should:
"make Puerto Rico [and] D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme Court to 13"
His follow-up instruction was blunt:
"Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it."
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., endorsed a 13-justice court on Meet the Press, calling that total “a pretty good number” and a “baker’s dozen” compared with nine today.
In May, Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, introduced legislation to raise the high court’s seats to 13. Green later lost his seat in a party primary, and it remains unclear whether another House Democrat has picked up the bill.
Those proposals land while the court continues to shape election rules and executive power, as when the Supreme Court freed Trump officials to verify voter citizenship through a federal database.
Harris’s openness to changing the court’s size is not new.
Breitbart News has documented that she said in 2019 she was open to increasing the number of justices and never renounced that view, and that she backed President Biden’s later package of term limits and an ethics code imposed from outside the judiciary.
Critics argued those “reforms” would let a Democratic president replace the court’s longest-serving conservatives over time and strip the court of real independence.
Separate coverage of her midterm messaging captured the same appetite for structural change. Fox News reported Harris describing a “no bad ideas brainstorm” that included Supreme Court reform, explicitly expanding the court, alongside fresh thinking on the Electoral College.
Harris said in that discussion:
"And in that no bad ideas brainstorm, we talk about what we need to do and think about doing around the Electoral College. We talk about the idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court."
The pattern matters to voters who have watched emergency-docket fights and written opinions pile up, including coverage of how Kagan and Jackson welcomed more written rulings as major cases moved at speed.
Statehood is the second leg of the stool.
The Washington, D.C. Admission Act remains a standing Democratic priority. As described in the reporting, it would create two new senators and a House member for a district that votes overwhelmingly Democratic.
Pair that with Puerto Rico statehood and the Senate math shifts for a generation. Carville’s advice, do it on day one, and do not campaign on it, treats the seats as a spoils play, not a consensus reform.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, speaking at party campaign headquarters in Washington, offered the public-facing slogan for 2026 candidates.
Jeffries said:
"Fighting for an affordable America, that’s what unites Democrats all across the country."
Affordability is the TV ad. Court size, the Electoral College, and four new home-state senators are the operating plan if the gavel changes hands.
Democrats have already tested how far procedural muscle can move contested bills in the current Congress.
A three-year extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits went to the floor by discharge petition and passed the House 230-196. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that extension would add $80.6 billion to the deficit between 2026 and 2035. A permanent extension has been projected at roughly $350 billion over a decade.
The American Dream and Promise Act, H.R. 1589, drew roughly 210 signatures on a discharge petition and nearly forced a floor vote. The bill would grant a pathway to permanent status for certain Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status holders. Earlier CBO work on similar legislation estimated more than $30 billion in added deficit spending, largely through Medicaid, CHIP, and related benefits.
A bipartisan push for a congressional stock-trading ban also gathered heavy discharge support but fell short of forcing a vote under the current majority. Several Democratic-backed measures in the 119th Congress missed by a handful of votes or stalled at the procedural line, which is why Nov. 3 and a possible slim House majority sit at the center of the party’s planning.
Election machinery remains a parallel battlefield, including when the Supreme Court left a mail-ballot injunction in place amid pointed pushback from Justices Alito and Thomas.
Harris stated she wants more justices. She stated Democrats should push D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood if Congress is willing. She raised the Electoral College as a target for new thinking. Carville told Democrats to enact statehood and a 13-seat court on day one and keep quiet on the trail. Clyburn called 13 a baker’s dozen. Green filed the bill. Jeffries brands the ticket around grocery bills and rent.
None of that requires mind-reading. It is the publicly stated sequence: win the House, then change the institutions that constrain power, the court, the electoral map, and the Senate roster, while the brochure talks about prices at the pump.
When leaders describe the overhaul out loud, voters get to judge the product before the fine print becomes law.