The Ragin’ Cajun who once advised President Bill Clinton has spoken, giving anti-gun Democrats a roadmap of what they should do if they take control of Congress next year. James Carville didn’t go off script. He said the quiet part out loud.
The veteran Democrat strategist recently argued that if Democrats win back both chambers of Congress, they should move immediately to make Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico states to bank four more U.S. Senate seats and expand the U.S. Supreme Court to 13 justices, packing it with justices who would vote against protecting Second Amendment rights.
That wasn’t the most revealing part, though. Carville’s advice was not to persuade the public. It was to conceal the agenda until after the election: “Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it,” he flatly stated.
Much like U.S. House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) infamous Obamacare line, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” the instinct is the same. Carville wants those same politicians that crave more gun control to keep the real agenda vague, secure power first and disclose the consequences later. Carville just updated that instinct to gain control at all costs for 2026.
Raw Partisan Leverage
Carville’s blunt “blueprint” was telling. It’s a list of familiar items on the wish list of the politicians that would erase Second Amendment rights altogether. That agenda already has a legislative paper trail.
Congress has the constitutional authority to admit new states under Article IV, Section 3 and Congress can approve more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court currently consists of one chief justice and eight associate justices. Packing the court was a refrain during the last presidential election. The reason then was as it is now. Carville wants to abuse the court to wield partisan political power and negate the balance of power between the three branches of government.
That’s the real scoop. Those same politicians who fawn in front of news cameras about “norms,” “threats to democracy” and “protecting institutions” have suddenly grown an appetite for brute-force institutional rewiring when they seek to ram a political agenda that has no widespread public support.
If Carville and those politicians listen to him truly believed this agenda was legitimate, they would make the case openly to voters. They would defend it on the merits with public discussions and debates. They would explain why changing the composition of the Senate and the Supreme Court is good for the country, not just good for their side.
Carville doesn’t dare do that. Instead, hide it. Win first. Do it later.
Gun Owners Beware
The firearm industry and Second Amendment advocates can’t, and don’t, treat this as some distant parlor game.
Institutional power is policy power. If Democrats could add friendly Senate seats and recast the Supreme Court, they would clear the path for the rest of their agenda — no doubt including more crippling federal gun control, more regulatory suffocation and a more hostile judiciary for Second Amendment cases.
That is not speculation. It is already playing out at the state level.
In Virginia, Gov. Abigail Spanberger is deciding what to do next after SB 749, legislation that would ban the purchase of many modern sporting rifles,If Dems could add friendly Senate seats and recast SCOTUS, they would clear the path for the rest of their agenda including more crippling federal gun control and a more 2A-hostile judiciary. semiautomatic shotguns used for hunting and home defense, many pistols and standard-capacity magazines was sent to her by the legislature. She already vowed to enact strict gun control while campaigning for the highest office in the Commonwealth. Virginians have responded exactly the way Americans always do when politicians threaten to restrict a constitutional right. Virginians are exercising their Second Amendment rights while they still can. They’re buying guns in big numbers.
The same can be expected should antigun politicians control Congress. Antigun politicians have been signaling it all along. They want bans on semiautomatic rifles and confiscation, bans on popular and common handguns, to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, to require universal background checks and the creation of a federal gun ownership registry, banking discrimination that would suffocate the industry, traditional ammunition bans and the list goes on and on.
Believe Them When They Say It
Politicians claiming to be defenders of democracy are being urged by a strategist to conceal a program of statehood-for-advantage and court-packing-for-control until after voters go to the polls. That is not “small-d democratic” confidence. That is machine politics dressed up as moral urgency.
For gun owners, the warning is even clearer. Any political movement willing to quietly restructure the Senate and Supreme Court to secure durable partisan power will not hesitate to use that power against the Second Amendment.
Carville didn’t misspeak. He clarified.
“If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should make Puerto Rico [and] D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. *expletive* Eat our dust,” he said.
Voters should pay attention. Democrat candidates might just take his advice.
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.