pack the court

idiomatic phrase

: to increase the number of justices on a court and especially the United States Supreme Court causing the ideological makeup of the Court to shift

"… But if you want to increase the size of the court—pack the court, as it were—all you need is an act of Congress. …"

—David Kaplan

In the simplest terms, court packing is the mechanism of adding Supreme Court justices to a nine person Supreme Court. Packing the court is legal …

—Adam Ramer

The Supreme Court has had nine justices for more than 150 years, but the Constitution does not require nine. Congress sets that number. "Nine seems to be a good number. It's been that way for a long time," [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg told NPR in July 2019. "I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court."

—Megan Henney

Three new positions on the state Court of Appeals were created unlawfully by the Legislature and must be eliminated, a lawyer for a Republican state lawmaker told a judge Friday. Attorneys … argued … over what GOP legislators describe as a move by former Gov. Jim Hunt to pack the court with Democrats.

—Gary D. Robertson

President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937.

—Collin Peterson and Denver Riggleman

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

Progressives routinely complain that the Supreme Court thwarts popular will — which is why some want to pack the court. —Daric L. Cottingham, Los Angeles Times, 11 Aug. 2021

What are the implications of new calls to pack the court? —Noah Robertson, The Christian Science Monitor, 7 Oct. 2020

Try to change inconvenient ancient rules: seek to pack the court, end the filibuster, junk the Electoral College, and bring in two more states. —Victor Davis Hanson, Arkansas Online, 5 Dec. 2022

Fallon and fellow critics have blasted Biden’s court-packing commission for including members opposed to expanding the Supreme Court and producing a report rather than recommendations on whether to pack the court. —Houston Keene, Fox News, 18 May 2021

Few -- if any -- really believe the workload is why progressives want to pack the court now. —Elizabeth Slattery, CNN, 19 Apr. 2021

DaBaby said pack the court!!! —Rachel Epstein, Marie Claire, 15 Mar. 2021

Hanging over the proceedings was the Democratic threat to pack the court—to expand its size, creating new vacancies for liberal judges to fill—if Mr. Biden is elected. —Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 15 Oct. 2020

When asked about the Supreme Court, Harris, like Biden, dodged the question on whether or not a Biden-Harris administration would pack the court, which is basically adding more seats to the highest court in the land. —Siraj Hashmi, Washington Examiner, 9 Oct. 2020

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Word History

First Known Use

1835, in the meaning defined above