For the First Time, Majority of Americans Want the Supreme Court Expanded

We already knew the Supreme Court’s approval rating was in the toilet: A poll conducted in August after the court overturned Roe v. Wade found that the institution had a net-negative favorability for the first time in the 30-year history of the survey.

Now it appears people are ready to do something about the corrupted institution—which is controlled by justices who were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote and, in many cases, confirmed by senators representing a minority of Americans.

A Marquette University Law School poll found that, for the first time, a majority of Americans support expanding the number of justices on the court, with 51 percent in favor. When broken down further, majorities of Democrats, Independents, women, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and people between ages 18 to 44, all support court expansion.

There’s a bill, called the Judiciary Act, that would add four seats to the court, making it one justice for every federal appeals court. It currently has 60 cosponsors in the House and just three in the Senate.

The poll further found that 60 percent of those surveyed disapproved of the court’s performance and 61 percent oppose the decision overturning Roe. And in a bit of schadenfreude, Brett Kavanaugh is also the least popular justice, even less popular than Mr. Ginni Thomas.

And here’s another new poll: Enthusiasm for voting in the midterm elections is at an all-time high, per NBC News data going back to 2006. The number of people who rated their voting interest as a nine or 10 on a 10-point scale was a whopping 64 percent—six points higher than the next highest year, 2018, when voters shattered midterm turnout records.

On paper, it sure seems like stacking the court with right-wing ideologues is about to backfire spectacularly for Republicans. But the reality is that voter suppression is still going strong and the House of Representatives is gerrymandered to hell. So Democrats still face steep odds to retain control of that chamber, and while they’re favored to hold the Senate, that’s not guaranteed, either.

It’s almost as if conservatives attacked representative democracy so they couldn’t be held accountable for their unpopular policy goals.