Nevertheless, the spike in attempts in recent years coincides with electoral victories by Republicans at the state level and is raising alarms among judicial watchdogs. “It raises the concern that it is based on political motivations, and the line between politics and judges is being blurred,” said Alicia Bannon, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice.

In Arizona, the expected expansion has been the culmination of a years-long effort by Republican legislators that has divided jurists and the public alike. Proponents have pointed to the state’s growing population: It has tripled since the last time Arizona expanded its Supreme Court, to five justices from, in 1960. Never mind that by this logic, the U.S. Supreme Court would have a few dozen justices by now instead of its current nine (actually eight, because of Republican opposition to filling Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat).

The members of the Arizona high court initially opposed the expansion on the grounds that its workload didn’t justify additional justices. But earlier this spring, the Arizona Judicial Council—a body comprised of judges, administrators, attorneys, and members of the public—endorsed a proposal that packaged the Supreme Court expansion with funding increases and raises for judges throughout the state court system. And in an op/ed for the Arizona Republic in April, the state’s chief justice, Scott Bales, defended the quid pro quo agreement even as he acknowledged the court had no need for more justices and would oppose the change on its own.

So is the expansion effort by Arizona Republicans the same as court-packing? The term has taken on slightly different definitions over the years. Most recently, Republicans in Washington tried to accuse President Obama to “court-packing” when he wanted to fill three existing vacancies on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals—an attempt at rhetorical misdirection that was widely mocked. In Arizona, there are a couple of key differences between the GOP effort and FDR’s bid to secure approval for New Deal legislation in the 1930s by adding more of his own appointees to the nine-member Supreme Court. For one, even critics of the Arizona plan say it is not motivated by specific legislation or a specific case. And the appointment process is different, too. The governor must select judges from a group recommended by the Arizona Commission on Appellate Court Appointments; he could still choose candidates from his own party, but his power is more limited than a president’s. Yet there is little dispute that conservatives have pushed the expansion with the goal of padding the court during Republican gubernatorial administrations. The sponsor of the bill, state Representative J.D. Mesnard, acknowledged that “if there were different person appointing, I might feel less comfortable.”