Aaron Belkin is director of Take Back the Court and political science professor at San Francisco State University. Belkin appeared on the panel on Supreme Court reform at the ACS 2019 National Convention, where court expansion was one of several reform proposals discussed.

I was honored to participate in a plenary on reforming the Supreme Court at the recent ACS national conference. At the end of the session, I told the audience of nearly 1,000 that they have a unique opportunity to save American democracy. Because time was running out, I was not able to provide much context, so I’m grateful to ACS for giving me a chance to elaborate here, especially in light of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's recent critique of court expansion.

Judicial reform rocketed onto the national agenda in February and March of this year after Pete Buttigieg said that he is open to expanding the Supreme Court. By now, 10 presidential contenders have stated that they are open to expanding the Supreme Court, including Senators Harris, Warren, and Klobuchar. As of late, however, the discussion has stalled somewhat as a result of a chicken-egg dynamic. None of the 10 candidates who have said that they are open to expanding the Court are willing to clearly and aggressively advocate for expansion, in part because polling on the issue is lukewarm. (Among Democrats, approximately one-third support expansion, one-third are unsure, and one-third oppose). As long as the candidates decline to explain why expansion is necessary, however, the polling will remain lukewarm. So, the conversation is stuck, and judicial reform has taken a back seat to other issues.

The unique opportunity for legal experts is to help the candidates transcend this chicken-egg dynamic by urging them to endorse court expansion whole-heartedly, and by explaining why restoring democracy requires expanding the Supreme Court. The candidates need to hear from legal experts, and they need to hear from them soon!

Legal experts should make three points to the candidates:

As the Roberts majority made clear in its recent decisions on gerrymandering and border wall funding, the current Supreme Court will not allow Congress to restore democracy; While every judicial reform option carries risk, court expansion is the least risky of available options; Despite the desperate need to reform the Supreme Court so as to be able to take democracy back, none of the other court reform options currently under consideration will work. Court expansion is the only judicial reform option that has a chance of allowing Congress to restore democracy.

Let's take each point in turn.