As they eye a return to power in Washington, Democrats are conspiring to control the third branch of government by forcing conservative Supreme Court justices off the bench and diluting their vote by packing the court.

Democrats are more serious than ever about making changes to the Supreme Court, currently made up of six Justices appointed by Republicans and three Justices picked by Democrats.

Party leaders are watching poll numbers that show the majority of Democrats are fed up with the Supreme Court and favor imposing term limits or adding justices.

“We have to do [something] with the Supreme Court, that is now a rogue Supreme Court,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a likely 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, told attendees at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition convention in June.

The perceived imbalance on the court has increasingly vexed the party and its base.

The high court infuriated them with a string of rulings, among them the 2022 decision to throw out Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision to legalize abortion. The court also handed down a presidential immunity ruling that protected President Trump from prosecution, and most recently tossed out parts of the 1964 Voting Rights Act, paving the way for the GOP to redraw congressional maps ahead of the November election.

Democrats accuse the high court of “legislating from the bench,” and the decisions are not going their way.

This week, the court is expected to hand down a decision that some legal analysts predict will ban states from counting ballots received after Election Day, a largely Blue state practice that the GOP opposes.

“If these conservative justices want to make public policy, they should simply quit the Supreme Court and run for political office,” said Sen. Bernard Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont who has become a major force within the Democratic Party.

Democrats are plotting a pair of remedies: Add a slate of new justices to the high court, presumably chosen by a Democratic president, who would push court decisions in a more liberal direction, or impose term limits that would force the retirement of the longest-serving justices, who now happen to be the most conservative members on the bench.

Left-leaning organizations in favor of altering the Supreme Court are using the issue as a litmus test for Democratic candidates in this year’s midterms and the 2028 elections.

Demand Justice is among many left-leaning groups pushing for adding justices to the Supreme Court and plans to pressure 2028 candidates to pledge to get it done.

Demand Justice President Josh Orton said the court must be altered in the coming years to ensure justices do not hand down decisions that block “everything that is accomplished and passed” by the next Democratic president.

In his view, the current makeup of the court is rigged with hyper-political, conservative justices who favor the rich and powerful.

“Demand Justice is going to play a major role in the next presidential election in making sure that the Supreme Court doesn’t stand in the way of plans to change the system and rig the economy for working people,” Mr. Orton said.

In addition to Mr. Buttigieg, other leading 2028 Democratic presidential contenders have joined the clamor to make changes to the high court amid demands from the far-left base, who will play an outsized role in choosing their party’s nominee.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is eyeing a White House run, said on a recent podcast that “it’s time to have the conversation” about term limits for Supreme Court justices and members of Congress.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who along with Mr. Newsom leads the pack of potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders, said recently on the “Win with Black Women” podcast that the Democratic Party should expand its playbook to include the “idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court.”

Poll numbers show an overwhelming number of Americans favor term limits for the high court. A Marquette Law Poll taken in late May found 73% of Republicans, 71% of independents and 87% of Democrats favor term limits for Supreme Court justices. Expanding the size of the court divided voters by party: 61% of Republicans oppose adding justices while 62% of Democrats favor the idea. Democrats were also more likely than Republicans to believe the court’s decisions are motivated by politics.

Democrats running in the midterms are getting behind changes to the Supreme Court. Graham Platner, Maine’s Democratic candidate for Senate, said he supports adding seats on the court and term limits for justices and, if elected, would call for impeaching the court’s most conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas, who he accused of ethics transgressions.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats expect to return to the majority next year and have prepped legislation to overhaul the court, but they are split over whether to expand the court or impose term limits.

Demand Justice, for example, believes term limits will be impossible to achieve and is pushing for expanding seats. Congress is authorized to do it under the Constitution, which gives it control over the size and structure of the federal courts.

Some Democrats have pivoted away from expansion and are focused on term limits.

Sen. Peter Welch, Vermont Democrat, drafted legislation that would limit tenure to 18 years. Under his proposal, every president would eventually be able to appoint two justices under a staggered retirement schedule.

This scheme, Mr. Welch said, would restore fairness to the Supreme Court, which he said is now lacking under Mr. Trump.

“The court is out of balance,” Mr. Welch said. “It’s the extension of the arm of the executive, and the executive is someone who is over-reaching in his power and getting deference from the court.”

Many legal scholars believe term-limiting the Supreme Court would require a constitutional amendment, but Mr. Welch and other proponents say it can be accomplished through legislation.

Mr. Welch’s plan would not expand the number of justices, which is commonly referred to as court packing.

“I just see that as a dead end. We add to the court, then they add to the court, and it just goes on and on. It doesn’t resolve it,” he said.

Rep. Ted Lieu, a member of the Democratic leadership team, backs term limits and packing the court. Adding seats, he said, aligns the high court with the rest of the federal judiciary that Congress periodically expands.

Congress expanded and shrank the Supreme Court several times in the 1800s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to add up to six additional justices in 1937 after the court struck down parts of his New Deal agenda, but lawmakers rejected his plan.

President Biden, who once called court packing a “bonehead idea,” was pressured to consider Supreme Court reforms during his administration. He convened a presidential commission to study the matter. It issued a 300-page report with no recommendations.

Mr. Lieu said Democrats are ready to try again.

“It’s the most partisan Supreme Court in U.S. history,” Mr. Lieu said. “We will pass Supreme Court reform out of the House after we flip the House. Reform is going to come next year.”

Democrats have also drafted legislation that would impose a strict code of ethics on high court justices.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat poised to chair the  Judiciary Committee if his party regains control of the Senate in November, introduced one of several ethics bills.

His legislation would subject the secretive Supreme Court to misconduct investigations. The bill would also require more transparency about gifts and recusals, among other changes.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in his 2025 year-end report on the federal judiciary, signaled his opposition to term limits for federal judges, writing that life tenure, granted 237 years ago, serves “to safeguard the independence of federal judges and ensure their ability to serve as a counter-majoritarian check on political branches.”

Republicans would fight an overhaul of the Supreme Court.

House Republicans last month held a hearing on court packing featuring legal scholars who warned it would undermine the integrity of the judicial branch.

“The most bone-headed assumption of the court-packers is that one side or the other could ultimately win this judicial arms race,” Gene Schaerr, a civil appeals attorney, told lawmakers. “This optimism overlooks the principle of mutual assured destruction, with both sides and the American system as the ultimate target. Once a precedent is set, the other side is likely to resort to the same tactic the next time it’s in power.”