Pack the Court to 13. Revisit the Electoral College. Statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico. Kamala Harris’s “No Bad Idea” Era.
Kamala Harris told a Nashville audience on July 31 that Democrats need to “revisit” the Electoral College, expand the Supreme Court to 13 justices, and consider statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico. She knew how it would land: “I know this is gonna be controversial coming from me, in particular.”
It’s not a new position — she first floated the framework in May, calling it a “no bad idea brainstorm.” What’s new is how much further the rest of her recent positioning has moved alongside it.
- 13 justices the Supreme Court size Harris proposed, matching the number of federal circuit courts — Fox News
- $13.8M raised by the Harris Victory Fund, Jan. 2025–June 2026 — FEC filing
- "Not made a decision" Harris's own words on whether she's running in 2028, said the same day — C-SPAN
Speaking with National Urban League President Marc Morial at the organization’s annual conference, Kamala Harris (D-CA) laid out three structural changes: “We need to revisit the Electoral College. We need to revisit the point of expanding the court to 13 justices like we have 13 district courts. We need to revisit, if they so want, statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C.” The comparison itself was a slip — there are 94 federal district courts, not 13; 13 is the number of federal circuit courts, which is presumably what she meant. None of it is a specific bill or mechanism — she used “revisit,” not “propose” — and on 2028 itself she was noncommittal: “I have not made a decision.”
Harris first floated this framework on the “Win With Black Women” podcast on May 13, 2026, calling for an “expanded playbook” that also included multi-member congressional districts and new accountability rules for Supreme Court justices who, in her framing, lie during confirmation testimony. Two weeks later, on a call with the nonprofit Emerge, she tied the push directly to the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling narrowing the Voting Rights Act: “What they have done with this decision…is they are back-dooring racism through politics.”
The reaction split along predictable lines. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called Harris and allies “institutional arsonists”: “You don’t just blow up the system when you lose.” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) was blunter: “Totally insane.” But the pushback wasn’t only from Republicans — Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) publicly argued Democrats should instead prioritize “lowering costs, health care, ending a runaway war,” a rare on-record Democratic break with Harris’s framing.
Alongside the structural-reform push, Harris has run a parallel line accusing Republicans of “cheating” through mid-decade redistricting, telling Democrats in May they need to be “ruthless” and turn out “too big to rig.” She repeated the line in Nashville. Critics note the same administration Harris accuses of rigging elections has also documented a real, if separate, voter-roll problem: a 2026 DHS review found roughly 278,000 noncitizens registered on federal voter rolls nationally — a figure the White House says likely understates the true total, since some states didn’t share voter files with DHS for the review. The comparison is a critics’ framing, not an equivalence this story is asserting; both claims deserve their own scrutiny rather than being taken as offsetting.
NEW: Kamala Harris is calling for an 'expanded playbook' to strengthen democracy — including Electoral College reform, Supreme Court expansion, rules for SCOTUS including consequences for lying to the Senate, multi-member districts, and D.C./Puerto Rico statehood.
Structural reform isn’t the only place Harris has moved. Axios reported July 1 that she personally phoned NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and has held closed-door meetings with pro-Palestinian activists as part of early 2028 groundwork — a shift from her more conventionally pro-Israel 2024 positioning. Democratic strategist Patrick Gaspard framed it as genuine: “The vice president had concerns about a lack of empathy for Palestinians in the way the Biden White House presented their policies.” Progressive strategist Rania Batrice was more skeptical: “Why should we trust her now?…skepticism isn’t just understandable, it’s warranted.”
The same Nashville appearance produced one more data point. Asked by Morial to name the most effective presidents in American history, Harris named FDR — specifically citing his Supreme Court expansion push — along with JFK and LBJ. She did not name Joe Biden, the president she served under for four years: “Oh Marc, don’t make me do that,” she said, before listing the others.
“Oh Marc, don't make me do that.”
Kamala Harris · on being asked to name the most effective U.S. presidents · National Urban League, July 31, 2026
Court expansion, Electoral College reform, D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood, outreach to the party’s socialist wing, and a pointed omission of the president she served under from her own list of the greats — none of it is a platform yet, by Harris’s own admission. It is, cumulatively, the clearest signal yet of which version of the Democratic Party she’s betting on if 2028 comes.
