Power Grab Playbook? Harris Drops the Mask

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Kamala Harris told a room full of Democrats that packing the Supreme Court and adding two new blue states is how her party beats what she calls Republican “cheating.”

Story Snapshot

Harris told the National Urban League conference Democrats should “revisit” the Electoral College, court expansion, and statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C.
She admitted the plan is “controversial” before laying out how to grow the Supreme Court from nine to 13 justices.
Harris reportedly said the goal is to “neutralize this red state cheating” during a separate call with a liberal women’s group.
Republicans and even some legal analysts call the plan a raw power grab dressed up as reform.

Harris Lays Out Her Plan In Nashville

Kamala Harris stood before Democrats at the National Urban League conference in Nashville and said the quiet part out loud. “I know this is going to be controversial coming from me in particular, we need to revisit the Electoral College,” Harris said. She then called for expanding the Supreme Court to 13 justices and granting statehood to Puerto Rico and D.C.

Harris tied her proposed 13-justice court to the 13 federal circuit courts of appeals, framing it as simple math rather than a political maneuver. Critics see it differently. Adding four justices picked by a Democrat president would flip the current conservative majority overnight, undoing decisions like Dobbs that Harris and her allies have openly criticized for years.

A Plan To Rig Future Elections

Harris didn’t stop at the courts. On a separate call with the liberal group Emerge, she reportedly said her real goal is “to neutralize this red state cheating.” That comment matters because Puerto Rico and D.C. statehood would hand Democrats four guaranteed new Senate seats, permanently shifting the balance of power in Congress.

Gateway Pundit reported Harris told CNN’s Don Lemon she wants to “exploit” court packing to push through D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood once Democrats have the votes. That’s not subtle. It means using judicial control as leverage to rewrite the Senate map in her party’s favor for a generation.

Republicans Call It What It Is: A Power Grab

Senate Republican leadership blasted the plan as “radical” and “dangerous,” warning that court packing means appointing justices who ignore the law to deliver political wins for progressives rather than rule fairly. That’s an idea both parties scorned for decades after Franklin Roosevelt tried it and failed.

Fox News reported Harris was labeled an “institutional arsonist” for pushing to “fundamentally transform” both the Supreme Court and the Electoral College. Legal scholars at the Cato Institute have separately argued that recent Supreme Court rulings don’t justify blowing up the Court’s structure just because one side dislikes the outcomes.

Not A New Idea, But A Bolder One

Harris has flirted with court reform before. During the 2020 vice presidential debate, she dodged direct questions about packing the court. As a senator, she told Politico the country faced “a crisis of confidence” in the Supreme Court and said “everything is on the table.”

What’s changed is the confidence with which she now says it. Back then Harris deflected. Now she’s naming a specific number, 13 justices, and specific new states, Puerto Rico and D.C., as part of what she’s calling a 2028 platform. The Washington Post’s own opinion page called it a “mindless flirtation” that ignores the damage court packing would do to judicial independence.

Kamala Harris just previewed a radical 2028 platform that includes packing the Supreme Court to 13 justices eliminating the Electoral College granting statehood to DC and Puerto Rico and ending the filibuster.
She also claimed the country has 13 district courts which is simply… pic.twitter.com/wS1hvk32Gs

— sandym (@Sandy1Texas) August 1, 2026

For conservatives who value the Constitution’s checks and balances, this isn’t a policy debate about tax rates or infrastructure spending. It’s a plan to change the referee mid-game by adding players to one team’s side, then locking in the win by adding two new states built to vote Democrat. Voters who believe in fair elections and an independent judiciary should take Harris at her word.