Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand signaled her openness to expanding the Supreme Court beyond nine seats if her party retakes the Senate and the White House in next year’s elections.
Gillibrand, a second-term senator from New York, appeared on left-wing podcast PodSaveAmerica on Tuesday, where she was asked about either placing term limits on Supreme Court justices or adding additional seats, in order to push the court in a liberal direction.
Gillibrand declined to rule out the drastic measures, which she described as “interesting ideas.”
“Well they’re interesting ideas that I would need to think more about,” she said. “But I do think what President Trump has done with the judiciary is, is shocking and is so destructive.”
Gillibrand added that both Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were “disqualified in my mind because of their records because of their previous statements because their belief that money is speech and that corporations have same free speech rights as you, and I think that’s outrageous.”
The Democratic Party’s left-wing base has increasingly pushed for extreme measures, including court-packing, in order to shift the ideological tilt of the nation’s highest court.
Multiple House Democrats have also floated the possibility of trying to impeach Justice Kavanaugh.