Progressive poll: Majority say Supreme Court faces legitimacy crisis

by Zach Schonfeld - 07/19/23 6:00 AM ET

Roughly 6 in 10 likely voters say the Supreme Court faces a legitimacy crisis, according to new polling from progressive firm Data for Progress.

The data, collected in partnership with the Progressive Change Institute and shared exclusively with The Hill, found that 62 percent of likely voters believe the court is increasingly corrupted and faces a legitimacy crisis, including large majorities of Democrats and independents.

Forty-one percent of Republicans agreed with the statement, compared to 46 percent who disagreed.

The poll, which was conducted as the court was issuing its final decisions of the term late last month, comes as Senate Democrats attempt to push a Supreme Court ethics bill in the wake of the justices’ recent ethics controversies. The Senate Judiciary Committee will mark up the bill on Thursday.

Justice Clarence Thomas came under scrutiny in April following a ProPublica investigation that detailed undisclosed trips he accepted from billionaire and GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, as well as a real-estate transaction between them. Thomas has denied any wrongdoing and said the trips fell under a personal hospitality exception to disclosure requirements.

ProPublica later reported on an undisclosed trip Justice Samuel Alito took to Alaska funded in part by Paul Singer, a billionaire and GOP megadonor. Alito did not recuse himself on multiple occasions when a subsidiary of Singer’s hedge fund came before the court, but the justice has said he was not aware of the connection and denied any wrongdoing.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said the court is corrupted by big-money influences, compared to 30 percent who disagreed with the statement.

Sixty-two percent of likely voters in the poll said the court is imposing its political agenda on the American people, including 48 percent of Republicans.

The institute said it is sending a new memo to lawmakers urging them to say: “This Court is corrupt and faces a legitimacy crisis.”

“Senate Democrats are right to advance Supreme Court ethics legislation because Americans overwhelmingly view this Court as corrupt and facing a legitimacy crisis,” Progressive Change Institute Co-Founder Adam Green said in a statement. “Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito took money from billionaires and then did their bidding – trampling on the freedoms of women, workers, and all Americans. We hope Republican leaders join Democrats in supporting Supreme Court ethics.”

Republicans have cast Democrats’ push as an attempt to tear down the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, given that Thomas and Alito are viewed as the leading conservatives on the court.

Earlier this month, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor came under scrutiny after an Associated Press investigation revealed the justice’s aide pushed colleges to purchase additional copies of her books when she traveled to their schools for speaking engagements, although the poll was conducted before the story’s release.

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Only 41 percent said the court is doing its job fairly and independently, a figure that similarly split along partisan lines.

“The current Supreme Court majority includes three justices appointed by a twice-impeached, twice-indicted insurrectionist and two other justices embroiled in scandal for accepting luxury trips and gifts from billionaires. How should the American people feel when that same court rejects decades of precedent and strips away fundamental rights? It’s no surprise that 62% of voters see this as a legitimacy crisis,” Danielle Deiseroth, executive director at Data for Progress, said in a statement.

The poll was conducted between June 29 and July 1 with 1,207 likely voters nationally. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Tags Clarence Thomas harlan crow Paul Singer Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court Supreme Court ethics