Three US senators announced bills on Thursday that proposed the most sweeping structural changes to the secret court that oversees the legal basis for surveillance activities since it was set up 35 years ago.

Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Tom Udall of New Mexico, all Democrats, want a special advocate for Americans’ privacy to argue before the so-called Fisa court when the government seeks extraordinary surveillance requests. They also propose to diversify the powerful secret court ideologically and geographically.

“The constitution needs zealous advocacy,” Blumenthal said Thursday, in advance of the twin bills’ introduction, a day before Congress recesses for August. “The client will be the constitution.”

A separate measure from the three senators would still allow the chief justice of the US supreme court to select the Fisa court judges, but would require him to pick them from nominations brought by the chief judges of the US federal circuit courts. The court’s membership would expand to 13 judges, essentially representing each of the federal courts nationwide, from the current 11.

The move is a substantial overhaul of a court that most Americans did not know existed eight weeks ago, when the Guardian published an April order from one of its former members, Roger Vinson, ordering Verizon to provide the National Security Agency with the phone records of all its customers.

Currently, the Fisa court has only one petitioner: the government. In its 35-year history, it has rejected 11 out of more than 34,000 surveillance requests, prompting its current presiding judge, Reggie Walton, to aggressively fight the perception it is a rubber stamp.

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