He Says He Is Working to 'Block Democrats' Attempts to Pack the Court.' The One Court-Expansion Bill in This Congress Has Zero Cosponsors.

Rule of Law Source: Washington Examiner op-ed and Facebook Post (official page) MISSING CONTEXT

Original source →

Why this matters

A member of Congress has a fixed number of days and a fixed amount of attention. On September 8 Rep. Langworthy published a national op-ed, and on September 11 he promoted it to his constituents, about blocking “Democrats' attempts to pack the court.” This entry checks what those attempts consist of in the current Congress, what the measure he is promoting actually did, and what the same news organization that ran his op-ed said about it.

Statement

Source: Official Facebook page, September 11, 2026, linking his Washington Examiner op-ed, “Democrats can’t win in court, so they’re trying to break it”:

“The Supreme Court was never meant to adhere to the fleeting political whims of one Party or another. When a Supreme Court decision goes against you, the answer should not be to add more justices until you get the answer you want. Take a moment to read my op-ed in Washington Examiner on why we must protect the Constitution and block Democrats’ attempts to pack the court.”

From the op-ed:

“There is a growing effort on the Left to put more justices on the Supreme Court when its decisions don’t produce the outcome they desire… Republicans are actively fighting against this political manipulation. H.J. Res. 1 proposes an amendment to the Constitution to explicitly require that the Supreme Court of the United States be composed of nine justices.”

The record

What “Democrats’ attempts” consist of in this Congress

The House Judiciary Committee’s Republican majority wrote the report recommending H.J. Res. 1. Its own account: “In the 117th Congress, Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) introduced the Judiciary Act of 2021 to add four associate justices… Representative Johnson reintroduced this legislation in 2023. In the 119th Congress, Representative Al Green (D-TX) introduced a similar bill.”

MeasureStatus, from the official record
H.R. 8647 (Green), to increase the Court from 9 to 13Introduced May 4, 2026. Zero cosponsors. Referred to the Judiciary Committee the same day. No action since.
Judiciary Act (Johnson, Markey)Introduced in 2021 and 2023. The committee report cites no reintroduction in this Congress.
H.R. 3544 (Johnson), a Supreme Court tenure and retirement bill86 cosponsors. Referred May 21, 2025. No action since. The report lists it in a footnote; it is a term-limits bill by its title, not the expansion bill the report’s text describes.

Republicans hold the House, the Senate and the White House. No court-expansion bill has had a hearing, a markup or a vote in this Congress.

What H.J. Res. 1 did

StepRecord
SponsorRep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). Two cosponsors. Rep. Langworthy is not one of them.
CommitteeReported 15 to 8 by the Judiciary Committee; report filed July 6, 2026
FloorSeptember 2, 2026, brought up under suspension of the rules, which requires two-thirds
ResultFailed, 212 to 206 (Roll Call 293). Republicans 211 to 0; Democrats 1 to 205. Rep. Langworthy voted Yea.
What passage would have requiredTwo-thirds of the House, two-thirds of the Senate, and ratification by 38 states

The Washington Examiner’s own news report on the vote, published five days before his op-ed ran in the same outlet, called the measure “viewed primarily as a symbolic gesture not expected to advance,” noted that Speaker Johnson “scheduled the latest vote regarding the Supreme Court with few legislative days left before the Nov. 3 elections, offering the GOP a strategic messaging opportunity,” and said it “faced an essentially impossible pathway” because Republicans hold 218 seats to Democrats’ 214.

In plain language: the attempt he says he is blocking is, in this Congress, one bill by one member with no cosponsors that has never moved. The amendment he is promoting was scheduled two months before the election under a procedure it could not pass, and it fell 67 votes short of the two-thirds it needed (279 of the 418 members voting). His op-ed does not mention that it failed.

The fair reading

  • The idea is live among Democrats, even if the bill is not. Former Vice President Kamala Harris said this summer that “we need to revisit the point of expanding the court to 13 justices,” and Rep. James Clyburn said on Meet the Press that “13 is a pretty good number” (Deseret News, September 2). Sen. Ed Markey has sponsored expansion bills in past Congresses. His op-ed’s concern is “a future Democratic Congress,” and that concern is not invented.
  • 205 Democrats voted against a nine-justice amendment. Republicans read that as intent. The Democrats’ dissenting views in the committee report give a different reason: that the question “is not really about whether nine should suddenly become a magic number” but about whether Congress “should now permanently relinquish another constitutional power that the Framers gave to us in Article I.”
  • His history is accurate. Congress has set the Court’s size by statute since 1789, and it has been nine since 1869.
  • Messaging votes are routine in both parties. This entry does not say the vote was improper. It documents what the vote was.

Questions this raises

  1. His post asks constituents to help “block Democrats’ attempts to pack the court.” Which attempt, in this Congress, is he referring to other than a bill with no cosponsors?
  2. Why does the op-ed describe H.J. Res. 1 in the present tense, as something that “proposes” an amendment, six days after it failed?
  3. He sits on the Rules Committee, which decides how measures reach the floor. Why was a constitutional amendment brought up under a procedure requiring two-thirds when his party holds 218 of 435 seats?
  4. The same week, $87 million in police and counterterrorism grants owed to New York remained unpaid and eight hospitals in his district sat on an at-risk list. Has he written an op-ed about either?

Sources

Note: This entry documents publicly available legislative records and published statements. It takes no position on the size of the Supreme Court and does not allege that any statement was knowingly false. Rep. Langworthy’s office has not been asked for comment as of this writing; any response will be published in full.

Last updated: September 21, 2026