5 notable provisions in the 2024 Republican Party Platform

5. Contains vow to preserve number of justices on the US Supreme Court

This year’s platform contains language explicitly proclaiming, “We will maintain the Supreme Court as it was always meant to be.” The document added, “We will not allow the Democrat Party to increase this number, as they would like to do, by 4, 6, 8, 10, and even 12 Justices.” 

The vow to preserve the current number of U.S. Supreme Court justices comes as Democrats have floated the prospect of expanding the court following Trump’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the bench in October 2020. Barrett’s appointment transformed the partisan makeup of the bench from one with five justices appointed by Republican presidents and four justices appointed by Democrat presidents to one with six justices appointed by Republicans and three justices appointed by Democrats. 

Concerns about the impact of the 6-3 Republican majority led to calls from Democrat lawmakers to increase the number of justices to nullify the votes of the nominally conservative majority. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., sent out tweets on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, after Barrett’s appointment calling on Congress to “Expand the court.”

In 2021, after Democrats gained complete control of the federal government, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., unveiled more detailed legislation that would increase the number of justices from nine to 13. The proposal failed to gain traction.