Kamala Harris Urges Democrats to Consider Packing the Supreme Court and Abolishing the Electoral College

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Kamala Harris has a message for Democrats after a string of political losses: if the rules are not helping the party win, put the rules on the table.

The former vice president urged Democrats to consider what she called a “no bad idea brainstorm” that includes some of the most radical structural changes in American politics.

The list includes expanding the Supreme Court, reworking the Electoral College, creating multi-member congressional districts, and granting statehood to Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.

Harris also said Democrats need to “neutralize these red states from cheating” and “fight fire with fire.”

The Harris clip that sparked the backlash was shared on X last week and is still being discussed as Democrats look for a way to claw back power before the midterms:

Fox News Digital reported the core of Harris’ remarks and the institutional wish list she put in front of Democrats:

Harris said Democrats should have a “no bad idea brainstorm” about what the party needs to do next. She specifically named the Electoral College and Supreme Court reform that includes expanding the Court.

She also brought up multi-member districts, Senate Judiciary Committee rules for Supreme Court nominees, ethics rules for sitting justices, and statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. In plain English, the discussion was about the Court, the presidency, the Senate, and the way House seats are drawn.

Harris tied that list to the redistricting fight now playing out before the midterms. She said Democrats need to “neutralize these red states from cheating,” including by having blue states expand their own maps.

She also said Democrats need to “fight fire with fire” because the other side is playing to win. That framing is why the clip landed so hard on the right: Harris was not talking about better messaging, but about rewriting the rules that determine political power.

Fox’s account made clear that this was not an isolated throwaway line in a casual interview. It was part of a broader pitch for Democrats to expand the party’s playbook after losing ground in the map fights.

That is the real story here. Harris is doing more than complaining about a bad news cycle.

She is naming the institutions Democrats want to reshape if they get the chance.

Adding D.C. and Puerto Rico as states would likely give Democrats four new Senate seats.

Packing the Supreme Court would erase the conservative majority built through lawful nominations and confirmations.

Reworking the Electoral College would shift presidential elections toward deep-blue population centers. Multi-member districts would open another path to rewriting House math.

Republicans did not let the comments slide.

Fox News collected sharp pushback from GOP leaders and even a note of caution from one Democrat:

Speaker Mike Johnson said it was outrageous for a former vice president and presidential candidate to suggest packing the Supreme Court or destroying institutions because Democrats lost. Johnson said Democrats want to “blow up the system” and called the strategy dangerous.

Rep. Ralph Norman called the idea “totally insane” and warned that voters had already rejected Harris once.

That is the basic Republican argument: Democrats are not asking why voters moved away from them, but looking for new levers of power.

Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado, pushed back more gently.

He said the party should focus on costs, health care, and the war instead of putting institutional rewrites before voters’ daily concerns.

Fox also placed Harris’ remarks inside the redistricting battle now shaping the 2026 midterms. Republicans have gained ground after court rulings and state-level map fights, while Democrats are openly searching for a counterattack that can restore their advantage.

The response shows why the clip has legs. Harris gave Republicans a clean example of what they have been warning about for years: Democrats losing ground, then reaching for the rules of the game itself.

Johnson’s warning lands because the move is bigger than one Harris sound bite.

Democrats are increasingly saying the quiet part in public: when voters reject them, the next move is to change the system that produced the rejection.

The court-packing piece is especially telling.

Fox News columnist Howard Kurtz pointed back to the most famous failed court-packing fight in American history:

Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to expand the Supreme Court in 1937 after winning reelection and after the Court had blocked parts of his New Deal agenda.

The plan would have let him add as many as six justices.

The purpose was obvious: FDR wanted a friendlier Court. Even with his popularity and Democratic majorities, Congress refused to approve the scheme.

Kurtz noted that Democrats at the time understood the danger. Changing the size of the Court to get better political outcomes would damage judicial independence and turn the Court into another partisan weapon.

That history is why Harris reviving the idea matters. Court-packing is not a normal campaign slogan or a harmless talking point.

It is a proposal to change the referee when the scoreboard does not look the way one party wants. That is why the phrase still carries such a poisonous political charge nearly 90 years after FDR failed to sell it.

Kurtz’s point was simple enough for voters to understand immediately. If Democrats make the Court bigger only after losing control of it, the public will see the move as a power grab no matter how carefully party lawyers dress it up.

The official structure of the Court also matters.

U.S. Courts explains how the number of justices is set:

The Constitution does not specify how many justices must sit on the Supreme Court. Congress has changed that number at different points in American history.

The current structure has been settled for a very long time. The Court has had nine justices since 1869: one chief justice and eight associate justices.

That official history is why expanding the Court for partisan gain is commonly described as court-packing. The legal mechanism may run through Congress, but the political meaning is plain: one party would add seats because it does not like the existing majority.

For Harris and Democrats, that existing majority is the conservative Court that followed President Trump’s nominations and years of Republican Senate fights. For voters, the question is whether the party should be rewarded for threatening to rewrite the Court because it does not control it.

The official Court history also cuts through the euphemism. Expanding the bench after nearly 160 years at nine seats would be a major institutional change, not a housekeeping update.

Harris does not currently hold office. She does not have majorities in the House or Senate.

What she does have is a microphone and a willingness to say out loud where the party’s activist wing wants to go.

For voters, that is useful. It strips away the polite language about “reform” and shows the stakes plainly.

Packing the Court. Rewriting the Electoral College.

Manufacturing new Senate seats. Reshaping congressional districts.

Those are not modest reforms.

They are the wish list of a party that looks at President Trump’s wins, Republican redistricting momentum, and a conservative Supreme Court, then decides the problem must be the system itself.



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