https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/03/keep_nine_and_ban_courtpacking.html
The independence of the Judiciary — enshrined in the Constitution and essential to both the rule of law and democracy itself — has not been immune to attack. Acting through Congress, the federal government has on seven occasions changed the number of justices on the Supreme Court, chiefly for political gain. Such court-packing reflects badly on the American judicial system as a whole, since the perception of judicial independence or its absence permeates all levels of the courts.
To end the pernicious practice, a group of 15 former state attorneys general — eight Democrats and seven Republicans — got together in 2019 to found the Coalition to Preserve the Independence of the United States Supreme Court. They proposed a constitutional amendment to permanently ban court-packing — the one-sentence Keep Nine Amendment — which says: “The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine Justices.”
It now has the support of over 200 members of Congress, 19 state legislatures, attorneys general, governors, and other government officials. Voters support the amendment, 62% for versus 18% against. Many justices, including Stephen Breyer and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, agreed that nine is “a very good number,” large enough to represent some diversity of views, small enough to allow the Court to be sufficiently deliberative. Nine is also the number of justices the Court has had since 1869.
In September 2020, U.S. rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) introduced the amendment in the House of Representatives as House Joint Resolution 53; he reintroduced it in 2021 (H.J.Res. 11) and again in January 2023 (H.J.Res. 8). In October 2020, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced it in the Senate as Joint Resolution 76. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), too, proposed an amendment in 2021 that the Supreme Court bench shall constitute “not more than nine judges.”
According to Article V, there are two ways to amend the Constitution: by a two-thirds vote on a proposed congressional resolution or by a convention called by Congress in response to applications from two thirds of the state legislatures. According to Paul Summers, former attorney general of Tennessee and current chair of the Keep Nine coalition, this is an opportunity for American leaders to come together despite their deep differences to protect the independence of one of the key institutions that protects our republic.