Hillary Clinton is no longer the Democratic Party’s most influential figure, but she remains firmly connected to its establishment. Her support for expanding the Supreme Court therefore signals that an idea once treated as radical has moved squarely into the Democratic mainstream.

“We should seriously look at expanding the court while the Democrats are in power,” Clinton said on a recent podcast. “You know, it used to be that you’d have one justice for each circuit. We now have 13 circuits, we should have 13 justices.”

That proposal would add four justices, but expansion is only one reform Democrats are considering. Other possibilities include 18 year term limits, enforceable ethics rules and restrictions on the court’s ability to strike down laws its members oppose.

The ethics question carries particular force given the billionaire funded trips associated with Justice Clarence Thomas. Whatever reform Democrats prefer, merely condemning the court’s latest destructive ruling is no longer an adequate response.

This transformation in Democratic thinking has happened quickly. Five years ago, Sen. Ed Markey introduced legislation to add four justices, yet the bill attracted only two cosponsors, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith.

Joe Biden answered demands for court reform by appointing a commission to study the subject, a classic Washington maneuver for putting a difficult issue on a shelf. The commission produced a lengthy white paper, but Biden did not endorse term limits and an enforceable ethics code until July 2024, after leaving the presidential race.

The political environment now looks dramatically different. Supreme Court reform will almost certainly become part of the 2028 Democratic platform, and nearly every politician considering a presidential campaign has supported at least some form of institutional change.

The list of potential contenders supporting court expansion includes Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Rep. Ro Khanna and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Sens. Chris Murphy, Cory Booker and Elissa Slotkin, along with Gov. Andy Beshear, have endorsed term limits.

Other possible candidates are keeping their options deliberately broad. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Govs. Josh Shapiro and JB Pritzker have said everything should remain on the table, without identifying precisely which reforms they would support.

The court’s own conduct is the most important reason for this shift. Its monumental decisions have overturned Roe v. Wade, weakened the Voting Rights Act, removed meaningful restrictions on billionaire campaign spending, outlawed affirmative action in education and granted presidents immunity from prosecution for crimes.

Taken together, those decisions reveal a conservative majority pursuing a partisan project to reshape the law and federal government according to its preferences. Yet the justices continue portraying themselves as neutral guardians uniquely faithful to the Constitution’s text and the intentions of its framers.

“We are not part of any political movement, and we are not attempting to further any political agenda,” said Samuel Alito, the court’s most partisan justice. Chief Justice Roberts similarly complained, “People think we’re making policy decisions,” even as he has led the court’s rightward charge and helped dismantle the Voting Rights Act.

Even Justice Elena Kagan, the most conciliatory member of the liberal bloc, has criticized the court’s approach. She recently said its decisions rubber stamping partisan gerrymandering demonstrated “a lack of the appropriate concern or understanding of the consequences ​of their decisions.”

That assessment gives the conservative justices too much credit for innocence. They understand the consequences of their rulings, and those consequences explain why Democrats across the party are reaching a consensus that the Supreme Court has created a genuine crisis.

The remaining dispute is not whether reform is necessary, but which reforms Democrats should pursue. Anyone seeking to lead the party will need to confront this court and rebalance an institution whose conservative majority has relentlessly used its power to advance a political vision.

Thanks to the conservative justices themselves, reform is no longer confined to the party’s left flank. Democratic voters are unlikely to accept leaders who acknowledge the crisis, complain about each ruling and then refuse to change the institution responsible for it.