Pete Buttigieg Wants to Pack Supreme Court With 13 Justices

"The Court has had 9 seats since 1869, and every serious attempt to alter that number has been understood as an effort to capture the Court for political ends"

 Legal Insurrection

Pictured in this post; those who could have chosen America's expanded Supreme Court Justices:

"Former Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg went on Fox News Friday to pitch a plan that would hand politicians four new seats on the Supreme Court and to argue that the institution needs to be fundamentally restructured.

"Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network called out what Buttigieg is really doing, including the clip of him making his case on Fox News.

Pete Buttigieg is doubling down on his proposal for Supreme Court "reform" by calling for court packing in an attempt to undermine the Court.

The Democrats are upset that this Supreme Court isn’t a forum to impose its radical agenda. pic.twitter.com/pA6gG8tza1

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) July 24, 2026 

“The legitimacy of the Supreme Court is, I believe, the lowest it’s ever been in the eyes of the American people. It’s come to feel like a nakedly partisan institution. We could do some things about that. At a minimum, term limits so that you know for each presidential term how many Supreme Court appointments are going to go with it. I also think we would be better off with a court that has something like 13 justices that would match the number of districts that we have in the federal system, and ideally appoint them in a way

that isn’t so partisan.”

"There is an immediate factual problem with Buttigieg’s pitch. The federal system does not have 13 districts. It has 94 federal judicial districts and 13 appellate courts; 12 regional circuits and the Federal Circuit. Buttigieg confused the district courts with the appellate circuits while arguing for a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s highest court.

"That error is not even the biggest problem with the proposal.

"Increasing the number of justices from nine to 13 is court packing, regardless of how Buttigieg dresses it up. The Constitution does not set the size of the Court, so Congress technically has the power to change it, but the Court has sat at nine seats since 1869, and every serious attempt to alter that number has been understood as an effort to capture the Court for political ends.

"Buttigieg also endorsed term limits and expressed interest in a so-called “balanced bench.” Under one version of that plan, the Court would expand further still, to 15 members. Five seats would be tied to Democratic appointments, five to Republican appointments, and those ten justices would then unanimously select five more. The effect would be a court designed by politicians, for politicians."  . . . More...