House Defeats Keep Nine Amendment 212-206, Far Short of the Two-Thirds Needed

The House voted 212-206 on September 2, 2026 against the “Keep Nine Amendment,” a joint resolution proposed by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) that would have required the Supreme Court to “be composed of nine justices.” A constitutional amendment needs a two-thirds majority in both chambers plus ratification by three-fourths of the states; 212 votes is not close to that threshold, and the outcome was not in doubt when the vote was scheduled.

The breakdown: 211 Republicans and Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) voted in favor; 205 Democrats and Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA) voted against. The near-party-line split is the point of the exercise. Speaker Mike Johnson brought a measure to the floor that could not pass in order to put members on record before the November midterms — a procedural vote whose product is a roster, not a law.

What makes it worth recording is the direction of travel it documents. An amendment to freeze the Court’s size is a defensive move, and it was brought because expansion has stopped being a fringe position: openness within the Democratic caucus to adding four seats has grown through a year in which the Court overturned Humphrey’s Executor in Trump v. Slaughter, reworked the Gingles standard in Callais, and repeatedly granted emergency relief on the shadow docket. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has pledged substantial Court reform as a priority if Democrats take the chamber in November.

Both parties are now treating the Court’s composition as an object of ordinary politics rather than a settled constraint on it. The vote changed nothing about the Court and everything about what is sayable in public regarding its size.