Democratic congressional candidate Brad Lander is calling for the Supreme Court to be expanded and term limits for justices, saying the conservative judges “are putting partisan politics ahead of impartial justice.”
Lander, who is vying to unseat Rep. Dan Goldman, derided what he called the “MAGA Supreme Court” for its decision this week overruling a state court judge’s earlier ruling that a neighboring Staten Island-based district discriminated against Black and Latino voters.
“We can’t clean up Washington without restoring integrity to the Supreme Court,” Lander said in a Wednesday video taped outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
Lander, the former city controller, said the court should be expanded to 13 justices, a shift that could give liberals a chance to add four additional justices and level the ideological balance compared to the current 6-3 conservative supermajority.
He also said the justices should only remain on the bench for a set term, not the current lifetime appointments.
“An appointment to the Supreme Court shouldn’t mean a lifetime lack of accountability,” Lander said.
A campaign spokeswoman said Goldman also supports expansion of the Supreme Court and term limits, pointing to a 2023 MSNBC interview in which he said “I think there may be a way to expand the court over time that makes sense.”
That is a revision from the position he took in a 2022 New York Times interview, in which he said he did not support court expansion and called it “anti-democratic.”
Congress has the power to change the number of judges on the Supreme Court but it has been set at nine justices since 1869.
Some reformers have suggested that the top court should be expanded to 13 to reflect the fact there are 11 regional federal circuit courts plus one for Washington, D.C. and another called the federal circuit that oversees some agencies and specialized cases.
Lander is mounting a left-leaning primary challenge against Goldman, a two-term incumbent who also says he’s a progressive but has taken criticism for his strong support for Israel during its war in Gaza.
Polls suggest the race could be a tough fight for Goldman, who won the seat in 2022 by winning a crowded primary.
The NY-10 district includes lower Manhattan, where Goldman lives, and a broad swathe of brownstone Brooklyn, which is Lander’s stronghold.
The race between Goldman and Lander was shaken up in January by a state court ruling that the lines of the neighboring NY-11 district held by Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis improperly diluted the power of minority voters and should be redrawn by the state’s redistricting committee.
That move would have likely involved adding a chunk of lower Manhattan to the Staten Island district. Goldman was considering switching districts to run for that seat, leaving Lander with a clear path to grab the Democratic nomination in NY-10.
But the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the decision, virtually ensuring that the old district lines will be used in the upcoming midterm elections and throwing Goldman and Lander back into a primary cage fight.
