Rep. James Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat who helped resurrect Joe Biden's 2020 campaign from the dead, went on NBC's "Meet the Press" on August 30 and called for expanding the Supreme Court from 9 justices to 13. His reasoning was refreshingly honest, if you were paying attention.

"A baker's dozen," he called it. Like he's ordering bagels, not restructuring the third branch of government.

"I think we are in a position now that calls for some significant actions taken by the Congress, and we ought to expand, and 13 is a pretty good number," Clyburn said. "A baker's dozen, it would be a good number to have on the court." The position he's referring to, of course, is that the Supreme Court has a conservative majority and Democrats don't like the rulings coming out of it. That's the whole argument. They dressed it up in words like "rebalancing" and "reform," but the math is simple: add four seats, fill them with liberal judges, and the 6-3 conservative majority becomes a 7-6 liberal one.

Clyburn didn't stop there. He took a specific shot at Justice Clarence Thomas, a man he supported for confirmation back in 1991. "I had hoped that Clarence Thomas would follow the modern underpinnings of that Constitution of ours, but he has not done so," Clyburn told NBC. He added, "I had no idea that Clarence Thomas would rebel, the way he has, against his own background and experiences."

Think about that word — "rebel." A sitting Supreme Court justice interpreting the Constitution as written is "rebelling." Against what, exactly? Against ruling the way James Clyburn wanted him to? That's a fascinating definition of judicial independence.

This isn't a new play. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts published a Boston Globe op-ed in 2021 calling for expansion. Sen. Ed Markey, also of Massachusetts, backed legislation to increase the number of justices. Former Vice President Kamala Harris supported the idea. Former President Biden, after his 2024 reelection defeat, called for a package of Supreme Court reforms — term limits, a binding ethics code, even a constitutional amendment on presidential immunity. None of it advanced into law.

The pattern is consistent. Democrats lose a case at the Supreme Court, and the court is "broken." They lose an election, and the Electoral College is "outdated." They lose a Senate race, and the filibuster is "anti-democratic." The institution is only legitimate when it produces their preferred outcome.

Clyburn even invoked the 1857 Dred Scott decision — in which Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that Black Americans had no constitutional rights — as evidence the Court has historically gotten things wrong. It's a real historical atrocity, and using it to justify adding four political allies to the bench in 2026 is not the comparison he thinks it is. The Dred Scott decision was wrong because the justices bent the law to serve a political outcome. Which is exactly what court-packing is designed to do.

The Constitution doesn't specify nine justices. That number has held since 1869 because both parties understood that the court's authority depends on the public believing it isn't a political weapon. Every expansion scheme chips away at that understanding, and Clyburn knows it.

He gave away the whole game in one sentence. Clarence Thomas didn't rule the way Clyburn expected, so now the bench needs four more seats.