U.S. Sen. Tina Smith is supporting a long-shot bill that would add four justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, throwing the Minnesota Democrat into a contentious debate over legislation that is unlikely to pass.

"Republicans have been working to politicize the U.S. Supreme Court for 40 years, with the help of dark money and the Federalist Society. With Donald Trump's help, they stole two seats, ensuring an ultraconservative court that is drastically out of step with the American people," Smith said in a statement announcing her cosponsorship of the legislation. "Allowing Texas' extreme ban on abortion to stand is just the latest demonstration that much of the current court has become dangerously unmoored from any reasonable principles of legal analysis."

When the bill from Massachusetts Democratic U.S. Sen. Ed Markey was introduced in April, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said that Democrats were "introducing a bill to add four new seats to the Supreme Court so that Democrats can pack the court, destroy its legitimacy and guarantee the rulings that liberals want."

Asked about the bill, a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the Democrat "has said in the past she is open to reforms to the size of the Supreme Court but right now is focused on her work with the Judiciary Committee to confirm various nominees across the country."

Hunter Woodall