Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro went on MSNBC this week and called for what he described as "radical reform" of the United States Supreme Court, including court expansion and term limits, one day after the justices upheld birthright citizenship in a closely divided ruling.
Shapiro, a Democrat widely discussed as a future presidential contender, told "Morning Joe" panelists that "everything needs to be on the table" when it comes to restructuring the nation's highest court. He framed the push as a response to what he called an executive branch accumulating too much power, a concern he attributed to James Madison, while simultaneously blaming the Supreme Court itself for enabling that accumulation.
The timing was no accident. Shapiro's appearance came the day after the Court ruled 5, 4 to uphold birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment, a result that should have satisfied Democrats. Instead, the narrow margin became a launching pad for a broader offensive against the Court's legitimacy.
Panelist Mara Gay set the table by noting that the birthright citizenship ruling, while upholding the constitutional right, showed the Court was "just one vote away" from a different outcome. She characterized Vice President JD Vance as saying the fight over birthright citizenship "isn't over" and is "just hanging by a thread", though she offered no direct Vance quote to support that characterization.
Gay then asked Shapiro directly whether Democrats should pursue expanding the Court or imposing term limits if they regain a congressional majority. Shapiro's answer on "Morning Joe" left no room for ambiguity:
"I think everything needs to be on the table. I think we need radical reform that's actually going to ensure that the voices of the people are heard from, that the voices of the people are represented in the three branches of government. We don't have that right now."
He went further, calling the Court's earlier presidential immunity ruling "one of its worst decisions over the last century" and accusing Congress of having "withdrawn from its responsibilities to be a check on the executive." His proposed solution: vote Democrats into power, then pursue "dramatic reform to give the voice back to the people."
On the birthright citizenship case itself, Shapiro said the constitutional text was "as clear as day in the 14th Amendment," that the case "should have taken a nanosecond to decide," and that the ruling "should have been nine nothing."
Notice the logic. Shapiro won the case. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional provision he supports. And his response was to demand the Court be overhauled.
That tells you everything about what this is really about. The call for "radical reform" has nothing to do with birthright citizenship and everything to do with the Court's broader composition. When Democrats win at the Court, they call the margin too close. When they lose, they call the institution illegitimate. Either way, the prescription is the same: pack the bench.
Shapiro is not the first prominent Democrat to make this case. Rep. Pramila Jayapal has openly confirmed that Democrats are pushing to pack the Supreme Court, and the rhetoric has only escalated in recent months.
What makes Shapiro's version notable is the packaging. He wraps a raw power play in the language of the Founders. He invokes Madison's fear of executive overreach, then proposes giving the legislative branch the power to reshape the judiciary to its liking. Madison, who helped design the separation of powers precisely to prevent such maneuvers, would have recognized the irony.
Shapiro's comments fit neatly into a broader campaign by Democratic leaders to delegitimize the Court whenever its rulings cut against progressive priorities. The strategy has multiple fronts: expansion, term limits, ethics mandates, and funding threats.
Sen. Raphael Warnock has similarly argued that Democrats should consider expanding the Supreme Court and imposing term limits, using nearly identical framing about "restoring balance" to an institution Democrats controlled for decades without complaint.
The pressure campaign extends beyond the bench count. At least one Democratic congressman has gone so far as to threaten to cut Supreme Court funding over a dispute involving Justice Alito's family, a move that treats the judiciary's budget as a political lever.
And the frustration driving all of this is not hard to trace. Recent Supreme Court terms have produced rulings that upheld Trump administration policies on issues like TPS termination, decisions that drew sharp backlash from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other Democratic constituencies. Each ruling that goes the wrong way, from the progressive vantage point, feeds the argument that the institution itself must be remade.
Shapiro carefully avoided the phrase "court-packing." He spoke instead of ensuring "the voices of the people are represented in the three branches of government." But the substance is the same. When a governor says "everything needs to be on the table" and lists court expansion first, he is talking about adding seats to dilute the current majority.
Republicans have been pushing back as Democrats lay the groundwork for Supreme Court expansion, warning that the move would shatter the Court's independence and invite an endless cycle of retaliatory packing by whichever party controls Congress next.
That objection is not hypothetical. Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Court in 1937 when it blocked his New Deal agenda. His own party stopped him. The principle then was straightforward: you do not restructure an independent branch of government because you dislike its rulings. That principle held for nearly ninety years.
Now a sitting governor, one with obvious national ambitions, calls for "radical reform" the day after the Court ruled in his favor. The mask is off.
Shapiro offered no specific proposal. He named no bill, no number of seats, no term length, no constitutional mechanism. He gave no indication of how "dramatic reform" would work in practice or what guardrails he would accept.
He also did not explain how adding seats to the Court would address his stated concern about executive overreach. If anything, a packed Court beholden to the party that expanded it would be less independent from the political branches, not more. The logic collapses the moment you press on it.
What Shapiro did do was signal. He told the Democratic base, and the donor class, that he is willing to go as far as the party's left flank demands on judicial restructuring. That is a political calculation, not a constitutional argument.
The Supreme Court is the last institution in American government that operates on something other than a raw majority-rule basis. Its members serve for life precisely so they can resist the political pressures of the moment. That design is not a bug. It is the entire point.
When politicians call for "radical reform" of the judiciary because they won a case 5, 4 instead of 9, 0, they are not defending the Constitution. They are telling you that no institution is safe from partisan capture if it produces outcomes they find inconvenient.
Voters who value an independent judiciary, left, right, or center, should hear Shapiro's words clearly. He said everything is on the table. Believe him.
