Harris Shredded After Promoting Radical SCOTUS, Electoral College ‘Reforms’

Former Vice President Kamala Harris is facing sharp Republican criticism after urging Democrats to consider sweeping structural changes to the American political system, including expanding the Supreme Court and revisiting the Electoral College, the next time her party controls Washington.

Speaking on a call with the left-wing nonprofit Emerge, Harris encouraged Democrats to embrace aggressive institutional changes as the party searches for a path back to power.

“Let’s invite ideas, for example, that are about Supreme Court reform, including the notion of expanding the court,” Harris said.

“Let’s invite a discussion about how do we push for statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C.; how are we thinking about the Electoral College,” Harris added.

“We’ve got to neutralize this red state cheating,” Harris continued. “There’s a brutality at play on the other side, and a ruthlessness. And we need to play to win.”

Her remarks immediately fueled accusations from Republicans that Democrats are once again threatening to rewrite the rules when they fail to win under the existing constitutional framework.

Harris appeared to be referring to redistricting fights unfolding in several Republican-led states this year, where new congressional maps could help the GOP gain seats ahead of the midterms. Republicans have argued that Democrats are in no position to complain, noting that blue states have long used redistricting to wipe out competitive or Republican-held districts.

Several Republican-led states are also redrawing race-based congressional boundaries after the Supreme Court found such districts unconstitutional last month.

Democrats have suffered recent defeats in the redistricting battle as well. In Virginia, the state Supreme Court blocked a ballot referendum that could have handed Democrats four likely seats, ruling that the effort violated the state constitution.

“What they have done with this decision, by saying that the politics of redistricting is okay, is they are back-dooring racism through politics,” Harris also said on the call, per Fox News. “What they are doing is intentionally about trying to suppress the voice of the people.”

Republicans quickly seized on the comments, arguing that Harris’ willingness to entertain court-packing, new states, and changes to the Electoral College exposes the Democratic Party’s increasingly radical posture toward American institutions.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called Harris and her party “institutional arsonists.”

“It’s a dangerous thing, a dangerous gambit,” the speaker said. “You don’t just blow up the system when you lose.”

“For the former vice president of the United States and a candidate for president to suggest that you should pack the Supreme Court or destroy these institutions because they lost is I just think outrageous,” he added.

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., was even more direct in an interview with Fox, calling Harris’ remarks “totally insane.”

“That’s why we can’t let her become president,” he said. “People … rejected her before; they’ll reject her again.”

Even some Democrats appeared uncomfortable with Harris’ push. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., suggested the party should focus on issues voters are actually raising instead of launching into institutional warfare.

“I think that’s putting the cart before the horse,” Crow told Fox News.

“Right now I’m focusing on lowering costs, health care, ending a runaway war that’s costing Americans tens of billions of dollars. Those are the things that my constituents are talking to me about,” he said.

Harris’ comments come as Republicans appear to be gaining ground in the redistricting fights ahead of the midterms. The GOP could pick up more than a dozen seats through new maps in Republican-led states, while Democratic gains have so far been more limited, including in California and Utah.

Earlier in May, Tennessee restructured its only black-majority district, which had been represented for decades by a white Democrat, giving Republicans a chance to secure a seat that had long remained out of reach.

Other Republican-led states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, are also working to eliminate black-majority districts in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-based congressional boundaries.

While Harris’ proposals drew national attention, other Democrats have pushed the rhetoric even further.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., recently invoked Civil War-style language while criticizing Republican-led Southern states over redistricting and court defeats.

Speaking amid growing Democratic anger over Virginia’s court ruling and the Supreme Court’s latest decision, Ocasio-Cortez declared that “the North” needed to confront Southern Republican-led states over what she described as attacks on democracy and minority representation.

“It is time for the North to pull up to the South and let them know exactly what they have uncorked with this injustice,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“They think they can draw us out of power. They do not know the sleeping giant they just awakened. What they thought was the final blow is actually just the opening silo,” she added.

For conservatives, Harris’ comments are another warning sign that today’s Democratic Party is not interested in preserving constitutional limits when those limits stand in the way of political power.

The message from Harris and the progressive left is increasingly clear: if the voters, courts, and states do not produce the outcome Democrats want, then Democrats want to change the system itself.