With Democrats poised to flip the US House, and potentially the US Senate, this November, Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Allegheny) is calling on his colleagues to pass legislation that would substantially reform the US Supreme Court.
That also includes expanding the size of the court.
“I’m open to and I support legislation that adds additional justices [and] that staggers their terms so that you get the political gamesmanship out of who gets to appoint justices and when they retire,” Deluzio told The Keystone in an interview.
Deluzio, who is considering challenging Sen. John Fetterman (D) in Pennsylvania’s 2028 Democratic primary for the US Senate, was the keynote speaker at the Pennsylvania Democratic Party State Committee’s fall dinner in Harrisburg this past Friday and has been crisscrossing the state volunteering for candidates up and down November’s ballot.
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“My own race and at least four congressional races, maybe more, could decide control of the US House. We have more battleground House races in Pennsylvania than any other state,” Deluzio said.
“And then look, whether Gov. Shapiro is going to have a governing trifecta, that turns on whether we win a bunch of state House races, a couple in my part of Pennsylvania, but all over. State Senate, we got a shot to flip it,” he added. A trifecta at the state level refers to when one single party controls the House, Senate, and governorship.
In recent years, the public’s view of the court has plummeted. According to Pew Research, 65% of Americans had a favorable view of the court in 2021, but those numbers decreased, with 53% of Americans having a negative opinion of it in 2026.
High-profile Democrats considering presidential runs in 2028 have embraced proposals to expand or reform the Supreme Court. Former Vice President Kamala Harris and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are in favor of adding justices to the bench, while Gov. Josh Shapiro has called for “radical reform.”
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“I think our ability to change the terms of the justices, to add seats, to stagger appointments, to put mandatory ethics—which they don’t have mandatory ethics codes on the justices now—that doesn’t require a constitutional amendment,” Deluzio said.
He added, “We should be passing it so the next Democratic president can do this. We don’t need a constitutional amendment to put ethics codes, for instance, on the justices.”
Deluzio, an ally of the progressive-leaning Working Families Party, began laying the groundwork for a potential Senate campaign in 2025 after appearing with US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at the senator’s “Fighting Oligarchy” events in Harrisburg and Bethlehem.
Previously, Deluzio has called for 18-year term limits for Justices, an ethics code for the Supreme Court that lower courts have to follow, gift disclosures, and an enforceable code of conduct.
“You look at declining confidence in the judiciary, that’s a problem for democracy,” Deluzio said.
“This has to be an institution that’s trusted. They have to behave to earn that trust–ethics reform, taking the political gamesmanship out of appointments–I think that’s common sense stuff.”
