2026-11-06T06:00:06-0500
华盛顿讯——在堕胎、总统权力及投票权等重磅裁决引发争议后，民主党呼吁改革最高法院的呼声已有多年。如今，随着民主党在中期选举中拿下众议院和参议院控制权，他们有望推进以法院改革为核心的相关计划。
预计民主党将在参议院斩获至少54个席位，在众议院拿下至少250个席位，这让他们得以推动此前在共和党主导的国会中毫无进展的立法提案。
尽管民主党尚未公布下一届国会的立法优先事项，但预计将于1月当选众议院议长的民主党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯已表明其对最高法院改革的重视。
他在一封正式宣布参选众议院议长的信件中写道：“我们必须铲除腐败的价格操纵行为、清理最高法院的混乱局面，并禁止国会议员进行股票交易。问责制应从自身做起。”
杰弗里斯在8月接受美国全国广播公司《会见新闻界》节目采访时表示，“大幅”改革最高法院势在必行，并指出很可能在下届国会执掌众议院司法委员会的民主党众议员杰米·拉斯金将牵头推进相关工作。拉斯金的发言人未立即回应置评请求。
多年来，民主党提出了一系列旨在改组最高法院的举措，包括大法官任期限制、制定新伦理规则以及增加大法官席位等。
拜登政府执政的前两年，即民主党上次掌控国会期间，众议院曾通过一项对最高法院大法官施加伦理要求的立法提案，但该法案在参议院陷入僵局。
时任总统乔·拜登成立了一个委员会，负责研究最高法院改革提案，但该委员会未建议对法院结构进行调整，只是梳理了支持与反对改革的相关论点。
不过，自民主党上次执政以来，尤其是在保守派主导的最高法院推翻长期判例、扩大行政权力后，要求改革最高法院的呼声愈发高涨。
如今民主党已掌控众议院多数席位，有望推动立法对最高法院进行改革。不过，该法案大概率无法在参议院获得通过，因为多数立法提案需要60票才能推进。民主党将掌控54至56个参议院席位。即便法院改革法案最终获得参众两院通过，特朗普总统是否会签署成为法律仍不明确。
以下是民主党可能在下届国会推进的部分提案：
伦理改革
2023年，在ProPublica曝光了克拉伦斯·托马斯大法官与一位富有的共和党捐赠人多次出行且未申报财务状况的系列报道后，要求最高法院制定行为准则的立法工作取得了进展。
在这些丑闻曝光后，参议院司法委员会推进了一项立法提案，要求最高法院制定伦理规范并建立处理不当行为投诉的程序。但罗德岛州民主党参议员谢尔登·怀特豪斯提出的这项提案在全体参议院表决前夭折。
怀特豪斯于2025年5月重新提出该提案。佐治亚州民主党众议员汉克·约翰逊在众议院提出了配套立法。
怀特豪斯与约翰逊的法案还要求最高法院建立礼品、收入或报销的披露规则，包括要求案件当事人或法庭之友意见书提交人披露给予大法官的任何礼品。
新泽西州民主党参议员科里·布克和纽约州民主党众议员丹尼尔·戈德曼也提出了计划，要求最高法院设立内部伦理顾问办公室和调查顾问办公室。调查顾问将审查和调查针对大法官的伦理投诉。
马里兰州的拉斯金与纽约州的亚历山德里亚·奥卡西奥-科特兹提出的一项提案，禁止联邦法官和最高法院大法官接受价值超过50美元的礼品。
最高法院虽在2023年11月自行制定了行为准则，但因缺乏执行机制，要求国会介入的呼声日益高涨。
致力于推动最高法院及下级法院改革的组织“修复法院”执行主任加布·罗斯表示，除最高法院外，民主党主导的国会还可调查近期曝光的下级法院联邦法官的不当行为指控。
部分联邦法官被指控虐待司法书记官，另一些则因涉嫌不当行为被调查。
佐治亚州的美国地区法官埃莉诺·罗斯在接受调查后收到私下训斥，调查发现她曾在自己的法庭内与一名警官发生性关系。佐治亚州共和党众议员安德鲁·克莱夫已对她提出弹劾条款。
得克萨斯州的美国地区法官阿达·布朗正面临司法行为诉讼，她被指控对一名律师、法官及法院职员发表种族侮辱言论，且曾无正当理由或出于“不寻常”原因回避数十起案件的审理。
罗斯表示：“联邦法官有2400名，难免会有个别害群之马，但如果我们要谈论清理政府，就不能忽视司法分支。”
罗斯称，国会中的民主党人还可通过立法将职场歧视和骚扰法的适用范围扩大至司法系统——这一想法此前已获得两党支持——并禁止最高法院大法官和法官进行股票交易及使用预测市场。
他表示：“更大的问题其实在于下级法院，需要重新制定规则，明确一点：尽管过去三年焦点可能集中在最高法院，但下级法院不应免受这场反腐败行动的影响。”
任期限制
美国宪法第三条规定，最高法院大法官和下级法院法官“行为端正”即可任职，这被解释为法官享有终身任职权。
但国会中的民主党人主张大法官应受任期限制，已提出相关立法及宪法修正案提案来确立这些规则。
众议院提出的几项法案拟设定大法官18年任期限制，并规定在总统任期的特定年份进行常规任命。
马里兰州民主党众议员约翰尼·奥尔谢夫斯基提出的一项宪法修正案提案规定，任职超过18年的现任大法官必须退休。首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨、塞缪尔·阿利托大法官及托马斯大法官的任职时间均已超过18年。
另一项任期限制计划来自共和党籍众议员、密歇根州的汤姆·巴雷特。他提出的宪法修正案提案拟将最高法院和下级法院法官的任期限制为20年。
但巴雷特在周二的中期选举中未能获得连任。
修改宪法需国会通过一项联合决议，且需参众两院三分之二多数支持，随后该提案还需获得四分之三的州——即38个或全部50个州——批准。
扩大最高法院规模
宪法并未规定最高法院大法官的人数，在美国历史上，大法官人数已六次变动，从最低6名到最高10名不等，自1869年以来一直为9名大法官。
但部分民主党人强烈呼吁扩大最高法院规模，尤其是在堕胎、监管权力及总统权力等引发争议的裁决出台之后。
得克萨斯州民主党众议员阿尔·格林今年提出的一项法案，拟将最高法院大法官人数从9名增至13名。民主党在参众两院过去提出的提案也将为最高法院增加4个席位。
Democrats could dust off plans for Supreme Court reforms after capturing House and Senate
2026-11-06T06:00:06-0500
Washington — After years of calling for reforms to the Supreme Court following blockbuster decisions on abortion, presidential power and voting rights, Democrats may be poised to push forward with their court-focused plans after winning control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections.
Democrats are expected to hold at least 54 seats in the Senate and at least 250 members in the House, giving them the opportunity to take up legislation that stood no chance of advancing in the GOP-led Congress.
While Democrats have not yet unveiled their legislative priorities for the next Congress, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is expected to be elected speaker in January, has indicated he has the Supreme Court on his mind.
“We must root out corrupt price gouging, clean up the mess at the Supreme Court and ban Members of Congress from trading stocks,” he wrote in a letter to his Democratic colleagues formally announcing his bid for the speaker’s gavel. “Accountability begins at home.”
Jeffries told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in August that “dramatic” reform to the Supreme Court is needed, and said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who will likely helm the House Judiciary Committee in the next Congress, would take the lead. A spokesperson for Raskin did not immediately return a request for comment.
Over the years, Democrats have proposed a variety of measures aimed at reshaping the Supreme Court — from implementing term limits for the justices to laying out new ethics rules to adding seats.
During the first two years of the Biden administration, when Democrats last controlled Congress, the House approved legislation that would have imposed ethics requirements on Supreme Court justices. But the measure stalled in the Senate.
Then-President Joe Biden established a commission tasked with studying proposals to reform the high court, but the panel did not recommend structural changes and instead laid out the arguments in support of and against potential changes.
But calls for Supreme Court reforms have grown louder since Democrats were last in charge, particularly as the court’s conservative majority has overturned longstanding precedents and expanded executive authority.
With Democrats now holding a majority in the House, members could push through legislation imposing changes on the high court. Still, it’s unlikely those plans would clear the Senate, where most legislation requires 60 votes to advance. Democrats will control between 54 and 56 seats. And even if court-reform measures did win approval from both chambers of Congress, it’s unclear whether Mr. Trump would sign them into law.
Here are some of the proposals that Democrats could take up in the next Congress:
Ethics reforms
Legislative efforts aimed at requiring the Supreme Court to adopt a code of conduct gained momentum in 2023, after ProPublica published a series of articles about Justice Clarence Thomas’s trips with a wealthy Republican donor that were omitted from his financial disclosures.
On the heels of the revelations, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced legislation that would require the Supreme Court to adopt an ethics code and implement procedures to handle complaints of misconduct. But the proposal from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, died before the full Senate.
Whitehouse reintroduced the proposal in May 2025. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, introduced companion legislation in the House.
Whitehouse and Johnson’s legislation would also require the Supreme Court to establish rules for the disclosure of gifts, income or reimbursements, including a requirement that parties to a case or people filing friend-of-the-court briefs must disclose any gifts to the justices.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Rep. Daniel Goldman of New York also introduced plans that would require the Supreme Court to establish an internal Office of Ethics Counsel and Office of Investigative Counsel. The investigative counsel would review and investigate ethics complaints against the justices.
A measure from Maryland’s Raskin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York would prohibit federal judges and Supreme Court justices from receiving gifts valued at more than $50.
The Supreme Court did put its own code of conduct in place in November 2023, but its lack of an enforcement mechanism led to calls for Congress to step in.
Beyond the Supreme Court, a Democratic-led Congress could also investigate claims of misconduct by federal judges on the lower courts that have recently become public, said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, which advocates for reforms to the Supreme Court and lower courts.
Some federal judges have been accused of mistreating their clerks. Others have been investigated for alleged misconduct.
U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross in Georgia received a private reprimand after an investigation found she had sex with a police officer in her chambers. GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia has filed articles of impeachment against her.
U.S. District Judge Ada Brown in Texas is facing judicial conduct proceedings after she was accused of making racial insults toward a lawyer, judges and court staff, and recusing from dozens of cases without explanation or for “unusual” reasons.
“There’s 2,400 federal judges, so there’s going to be a few bad apples, but if we’re going to talk about cleaning up the government, we can’t leave out the third branch,” Roth said.
Congressional Democrats could also enact legislation expanding workplace discrimination and harassment laws to cover the judiciary, an idea that has gotten bipartisan support before, and ban Supreme Court justices and judges from trading stocks and using prediction markets, Roth said.
“The larger issue is really in the lower courts and resetting the rules of the road and making it clear that while there may have been a focus on the Supreme Court over the last three years, the lower courts really shouldn’t be immune from this anticorruption push,” he said.
Term limits
Article III of the Constitution states that Supreme Court justices and lower court judges hold their seats “during good behavior,” which has been interpreted to mean that judges have life tenure.
But Democrats in Congress have argued that justices should be subject to term limits and rolled out proposals establishing those rules through legislation and constitutional amendments.
Several bills introduced in the House would set 18-year term limits for justices and establish regular appointments in certain years of a president’s term.
Under one of the proposals for a constitutional amendment, introduced by Maryland Democratic Rep. Johnny Olszewski, sitting justices who have been on the court for more than 18 years would have to retire. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and Thomas have all served more than 18 years.
One of the term-limit plans comes from a Republican lawmaker, Rep. Tom Barrett of Michigan. His proposal for a constitutional amendment would limit terms for members of the Supreme Court and lower courts to 20 years.
Barrett lost his seat for reelection in Tuesday’s midterms.
Amending the Constitution requires Congress to pass a joint resolution with support from two-thirds of both the House and Senate. Then, the proposal must be ratified by three-fourths of the states, or 38 or 50 states.
Expanding the Supreme Court
The Constitution does not set the number of justices on the Supreme Court, and across the nation’s history, the number of people on the high court has changed six times, ranging from a low of six justices to a high of 10. There have been nine justices since 1869.
But there’s been a groundswell of calls from some Democrats for Supreme Court expansion, particularly in the wake of contentious decisions on abortion, regulatory authority and presidential power.
One bill, from Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas, was introduced this year and would grow the number of seats on the Supreme Court from nine to 13. Past proposals from Democrats in the House and Senate would also add four seats to the high court.