Poll shows 2 in 3 favor term limits for justices
Americans’ confidence in court has diminished
WASHINGTON – About 2 in 3 Americans said they favor term limits or a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices, according to a new poll that finds a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans saying they have “hardly any” confidence in the court.
The poll from The Associated PRESSNORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 67% of Americans support a proposal to set a specific number of years that justices serve instead of life terms, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans. Views are similar about a requirement that justices retire by a specific age.
The poll was conducted just weeks after the high court issued high-profile rulings striking down constitutional protections for abortion and expanding gun rights. The poll also showed more Americans disapprove than approve of the court’s abortion decision.
The court faces diminished confidence among Americans. Now 43% said they have hardly any confidence in the court, up from 27% three months ago.
A commission tasked by President Joe Biden with examining potential changes to the Supreme Court studied term limits among other issues. The commission finished its work last year, and its members were ultimately divided over whether they believed Congress has the power to pass a law creating the equivalent of term limits.
Another proposal Biden’s committee studied was increasing the number of justices on the court, and the poll shows
that proposal evenly dividing Americans. Overall, 34% said they’re in favor, while 34% are opposed and 32% said they hold neither opinion. Democrats are more in favor than opposed, 52% to 14%, while Republicans are more opposed than in favor, 61% to 14%.
The poll also found increased dissatisfaction with the court since three months ago, before the court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a right to abortion. In the April poll, conducted before a draft of the court’s decision was leaked, 18% said they had a great deal of confidence, 54% said they had only some and 27% said they had hardly any. Now, 17% said they have a great deal of confidence, 39% only some and 43% hardly any.
The drop in confidence is concentrated among Democrats. A large partisan gap in views of the court that did not exist before the decision emerged; 64% of
Democrats said they have hardly any confidence, up from 27% in April. Another 31% have only some and just 4% have a great deal of confidence – down from 17%.
Among Republicans, however, views of the court have improved. Now, 34% said they have a great deal of confidence, up from 21% in the earlier poll. An additional 47% have only some confidence and 18% hardly any.
Overall, more Americans disapprove than approve of the decision to overturn Roe, 53% to 30%; an additional 16% said they hold neither opinion. On that decision, too, there’s a large divide along party lines – 63% of Republicans approve, while 80% of Democrats disapprove.
The poll of 1,085 adults was conducted July 14-17. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.