By Emma Donahue, FTC law clerk

Navigator Research has published the results of a survey they and their partners conducted earlier this month on the public’s views of Supreme Court reform, among other issues.

In most instances support remains high — and bipartisan:

Term limits

Term limits for Supreme Court justices was the most popular reform that was surveyed (74% support, net +59 overall, up from +42 in July 2023).

Support was bipartisan: +70 for Democrats, +53 for Independents, +61 for non-MAGA Republicans and +40 for MAGA Republicans.

Ethics investigations

Survey takers also backed “Congress investigating potential ethics violations by Supreme Court justices” (70% support, +54 overall, up from +52 in July 2023).

Support was also bipartisan for this reform: +65 for Democrats, +43 for Independents, +43 for non-MAGA Republicans, and +48 for MAGA Republicans.

Code of conduct 

In third place — yet still quite positive — was support for “requiring the Supreme Court to adopt a code of conduct for justices, implement stricter financial disclosure rules and allow formal complaints against justices to be investigated by judges serving on lower courts” — three reforms oddly wrapped up into a single question, but the results were heartening nonetheless (67% support, +51, up from +50 in July 2023).

This reform was +65 for the Democrats, +55 for Independents, +45 for non-MAGA Republicans, and +28 for MAGA Republicans. 

Expansion

Unsurprisingly, “adding more justice to the Supreme Court beyond the current nine seats” proved more divisive and partisan (40% support, +2 in this survey, down from +8 in July 2023).

The Democrats largely favored this reform, while independents slightly disfavored it and Republicans largely disfavored it: +27 for Democrats, -1 for Independents, -27 for non-MAGA Republicans, and -18 for MAGA Republicans. 

General views 

Americans remained mixed on their views of the Court, with partisan skews. Prior to the Dobbs decision, 56% of Americans viewed the Court favorably. Post-Dobbs, favorability has not moved above 50%.

Democrats were unsurprisingly more negative about SCOTUS (net -38) when asked to indicate “how favorable or unfavorable you are” to the Supreme Court, while Independents were slightly negative (net -8),and Republicans were positive (net +48).

Americans generally believe that the Supreme Court is middle of the road (37%), but a third (34%) said it’s too conservative. Only 15% said SCOTUS is too liberal.

Trusted reformers

More Americans trust the Democrats (35%) than the Republicans (27%) on reforming the Supreme Court,”but nearly a third (27%) do not trust either party to make the necessary reforms. Eleven percent of Americans said they don’t know whom they trust.