In Vino Veritas: Punch-Drunk Pundits Reveal Plans to Pack the Supreme Court

JONATHAN TURLEY ^ | 11/10/2025 | JONATHAN TURLEY

[DFG]

Below is my column in the Hill on moments of honesty after the recent Democratic victories in California, Virginia, New Jersey, and New York. In the euphoria that followed, Democratic politicians and pundits admitted that they intend to pursue radical changes, including packing the Supreme Court, once they retake power.

Here is the column:

“In vino veritas.” The Roman proverb — “In wine, there is truth” — reflects the fact that people are often at their most honest when they’ve had a few.

Elections can have the same effect for some to become drunk on even the prospect of power. Partisans can blurt out their inner thoughts with shocking frankness.

That was the case this week as Democratic luminaries discussed plans to retake power and then fundamentally change the constitutional system to guarantee they will never have to give it up again.

It turns out that winning votes in three blue states and a blue city in an off-year election can be quite intoxicating. It is easy to dismiss it as the talk of chest-thumping, bar-room blowhards about whom they were going to thump. But there is a truth in the bravado.

Citing election results, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) seemed to bounce with elation in declaring that “the Democratic Party looks powerful for the first time all year.” In a moment of remarkable candor, Murphy explained his desire to continue the shutdown, admitting deep concerns about the midterm elections if Democrats reopen the government.

“If we surrender without having gotten anything, and we cause a lot of folks in this country who had started to believe in the Democratic Party to retreat again — I worry that it will be hard to sort of, get them back up off the mat in time for next fall’s election,” he said. It is the same logic as randomly shoving people at a bar to impress one’s date.

Of course, extending the shutdown will harm millions and cost billions. But there are more lasting plans afoot if some of these partisans are to be believed.

Others were proclaiming their plans not only to retake power but never to lose it again. That means weakening the greatest single check on power: the Supreme Court. The talk of court-packing had died down after Democrats lost both houses of Congress and the White House. Now, after the elections last week, such talk is back with a vengeance.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder was telling anyone who would listen this week, suggesting that once Democrats take control, they intend to keep it permanently.

Holder explained on a podcast: “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power, if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.” When asked about the priority in wielding that power, Holder declared that the court was hopelessly broken and had to be fundamentally changed: “It’s something that has to be, I think, a part of the national conversation in ‘26 and in ‘28, ‘What are we going to do about the Supreme Court?’”

In other words, the court, as we know it, has got to go. While some on the left are questioning the very need for a Supreme Court or calling for it to be simply defied or “dissolved,” others want it to be stacked with political activists, like some state supreme courts are.

The problem has long been the focus of liberal academics planning for sweeping changes to the system. Many have called for the elimination of the Senate filibuster to force through measures making Puerto Rico and D.C. states with the addition of four new senators. Others want election and immigration “reforms” viewed as favoring Democratic campaigns.

That, however, leads them back to the inconvenient Supreme Court.

Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur.

This week, Democratic strategist James Carville laid out the step-by-step process of how the pack-to-power plan would work.

“I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen,” he said. “A Democrat is going to be elected in 2028. You know that. I know that. The Democratic president is going to announce a special transition advisory committee on the reform of the Supreme Court. They’re going to recommend that the number of Supreme Court justices go from nine to 13. That’s going to happen, people.”

Carville returned to explain that court-packing will now be as inevitable as Democrats taking power. “That’s going to happen to you,” he said. “They’re going to win. They’re going to do some blue ribbon panel of distinguished jurists, and they are going to recommend 13, and a Democratic Senate and House is going to pass it, and the Democratic president is going to sign it, because they have to do an intervention so we can have a Supreme Court that the American people trust again.”

So, with the legislative and executive branches in their hands, some Democrats are planning to decapitate the judicial branch — just in time for the 250th anniversary of our revolution.

After all, as Holder explained, it is all about “the acquisition and the use of power.”

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TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: democrats; scotus

[wny]

DJT should nominate 3 rock-solid constitutionalists all at once. Without any prior discussion, tweets, trial balloons, etc. it’ll be completely unexpected lightning bolts out of nowhere and it will hit the demholes and their msmwhores like an H-Bomb. then let them all bitch and moan and protest. Let’s have the discussion now, once and for all. then a week later say: fine let’s limit it to 9 justices, have an amendment to the Constitution introduced in Congress doing so.

[liberalh8ter]

And call it, “The Carville Amendment”……..just for the extra throat punch.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Every time the Republicans wring their hands about Trump “breaking norms”, read this article. The Democrats are all about winning at any cost. In the Biden Administration, that meant winning by jailing their opponents. In the next Dem administration, it will mean winning by packing the Supreme Court. And do you think the Dems will think twice about ending the filibuster if it means enacting their Socialist agenda?

[libertylover]

You are correct.

[Ancesthntr]

These people are tyrants. I have been saying this for decades, and I knew that it would ultimately come to this type of a conclusion. They crave power so badly that they can taste it. In view of their reaction to the Charlie Kirk assassination, as well as many other calls for the death of Trump and his backers in general, we should be harboring no illusions about who the left side of the political spectrum is these days. The old liberals of the 20th century are mostly dead and gone, the ones that simply disagreed with you, but agreed upon the rules and civilized behavior. That no longer applies.

If you want some guidance as to what a Democrat takeover will look like, review the history of the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1937 - and mix in a healthy portion of Moslem fanaticism to boot.