Majority of Democrats Support Abolishing Supreme Court, New Poll Finds
A majority of Democrats — 53 percent — support abolishing the Supreme Court in favor of a “democratically elected” court, according to a new poll.
However, 53 percent of all likely voters oppose abolishing the high court, the poll by the Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports found.
While 64 percent of Democrats also supported expanding the Supreme Court from nine seats to 13 seats, 51 percent of all likely voters opposed such an expansion.
Thirty-nine percent of Democrats supported a proposal for “a constitutional amendment that would give the United Nations the authority to reverse U.S. Supreme Court decisions that U.N. members believe violate human rights.” Just 29 percent of all likely voters and 17 percent of Republicans supported the proposal.
The survey of 1,025 likely voters was performed between July 6 and 7 comes just weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The Court’s decision to overturn Roe has renewed Democrats’ calls to pack the Court.
Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison claimed the Supreme Court is “illegitimate” after the ruling was handed down. While Harrison did not explain what makes the Court “illegitimate,” progressives have leveled the charge against the Court since Republicans refused to hold a confirmation hearing for former President Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland in 2016. GOP leaders argued then that it would not be in the interest of Americans to appoint a justice in an election year.
Democrats grew particularly incensed in 2020, when Republicans chose to move forward with confirmation hearings for Justice Amy Coney Barrett just weeks before the presidential election.
However, despite Democratic assertions that the decision to overturn Roe would erode trust in Court as an institution, the new poll found that 52 percent of all likely voters had either a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” opinion of the Court.
By contrast, just 33 percent of Democrats had a very or somewhat favorable view of the Court. Fifty-six percent of Democrats agreed that the Court is “fundamentally racist, while 67 percent of Democrats said the Court is “fundamentally sexist.”
“A clear majority of likely voters holds a favorable opinion of our highest legal body, rejects the notion that it is inherently racist or sexist, and supports its current institutional characteristics that favor impartiality and independence,” Jack McPherrin, research editor at the Heartland Institute, said in a press release announcing the poll results.
The poll results come months after a commission formed by President Biden to study potential reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court sent a nearly 300-page report to the president taking no position on Court-packing. The report offered arguments for and against Court-packing, judicial term limits and other matters related to the high Court, but does not provide any recommendations.
“Given the size and nature of the Commission and the complexity of the issues addressed, individual members of the Commission would have written the Report with different emphases and approaches,” the report’s summary said. “But the Commission submits this Report today in the belief that it represents a fair and constructive treatment of the complex and often highly controversial issues it was charged with examining.”
The report noted that “no serious person, in either major political party, suggests court packing as a means of overturning disliked Supreme Court decisions, whether the decision in question is Roe v. Wade or Citizens United.”
