Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Sunday called for an expansion of the Supreme Court's nine justices to 13, calling that increase a "pretty good number." "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker asked Clyburn if he agreed with former Vice…
Page B1From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 31 August 2026
Clyburn now wants 13 Supreme Court seats, regrets ever defending the one he has.
As it ran on the front
OBITUARY: Rep. Jim Clyburn's Confidence in Clarence Thomas
Born in the confirmation hearings of 1991, aged roughly thirty-five years, at rest as of this week in Washington, D.C.…
…(cont) The deceased was, for decades, a fixture of Rep. Clyburn's public record — invoked, defended, cited whenever the composition of the Supreme Court came up. It survived several controversies and several ethics questions, and several long stretches when defending it cost the Congressman nothing at all. It is survived by a considerably younger sibling: the position that the Court should hold thirteen seats instead of nine, which the Congressman now calls, in his own words, 'a pretty good number.'
It was preceded in death by any expectation that a defense, once offered, stays offered. Friends of the deceased describe the ending as sudden but not surprising — the sort of quiet passing that happens somewhere between a press availability and a cable hit, noticed mostly by the people who kept the receipts.
This paper does not traffic in whippersnapper enthusiasm for every reversal a member of Congress announces on a Tuesday. Most of them are penny-ante, forgotten by Thursday. This one is different only because it was said out loud, on the record, by the man who did the original defending. That is simply what happened, in order: defend the man, wait, regret the man, propose four more chairs at the table he sat at. The sequence does the work. No motive needs assigning, and none is offered here.
Washington runs on this kind of institutional memory loss, the sort where yesterday's defense becomes today's regret becomes tomorrow's structural proposal, and nobody involved has to explain the middle step out loud. It is not a scandal. Most days it is barely a story — a shit résumé line, if we are being flat about it, but a common one, and common is not the same thing as fine.
The deceased is not survived by an explanation, and none has been requested by anyone whose job it is to ask for one.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that readers request, from their own representatives, a plain account in writing of what changed, and exactly when, before the next vote is called.
“That's the tell right there — the guy defended Clarence Thomas on the way up, and the second the seat doesn't need defending anymore he's out selling court packing like it's new furniture. Convenient regret, right on schedule, and it never seems to cost him anything.”
“Expanding the Supreme Court is naked score-settling from a member who was in the room for that confirmation — did he vote for it? Let me check that, actually the record's not really the point. Nine seats is settled precedent — well, it's not in the Constitution at all, it's just custom, but it's OUR custom, and that's the point.”
The receipts
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) voiced his support for expanding the Supreme Court to 13 justices and lamented his defense of Clarence Thomas during the conservative justice’s confirmation in 1991. In an appearance on NBC News’s Meet the Press…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.