A new nationwide survey highlighted in a Wall Street Journal opinion editorial found that most Americans don’t support sweeping changes to the Supreme Court, despite President Joe Biden’s last-minute push for such a measure.
The WSJ cited a Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey that found that ‘support for the separation of powers just as many of the speakers at this week’s Democratic National Convention seek to undermine it.’
President Biden, after abruptly leaving the presidential race a month ago, endorsed legislation that would impose term limits for justices, among other things, that would drastically alter the makeup of the high court. His plan is also of questionable constitutionality.
According to the Journal, the Mason-Dixon poll found that after asking likely voters if they ‘support or oppose amending the U.S. Constitution to change the structure of the U.S. Supreme Court,’ that 52% of them oppose the idea, while 41% of likely voters support the idea of amending the constitution to change the court’s structure.
Noting that for ‘over 150 years, the United States Supreme Court has had nine justices’ and that court-packing ‘is generally defined as increasing the number of Supreme Court seats, primarily to alter the ideological balance of the court,’ the poll asked respondents if they agree with ‘court-packing.’
Only 34% supported such a plan, while 59% opposed and 7% of likely voters were undecided.
The poll also found that an overwhelming number of voters supported this statement: ‘Plans to expand the membership of the U.S. Supreme Court are primarily motivated by political objectives.’
Additionally, a full 87% of likely voters — including 84% of Democrats — agree with the following statement: ‘An independent judiciary is a crucial safeguard of our civil liberties.’
Democrats in Congress, in conjunction with the White House, have pushed to make radical changes to the high court.
And Democrats at the Democratic National Convention this week have already leveled attacks against the high court.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow falsely claimed that the Supreme Court has made Trump ‘completely immune from prosecution’ in its presidential immunity decision.
‘Sadly, such poisonous attacks on the highest court are likely to be a staple of this week’s convention,’ the Wall Street Journal wrote about the comment. ‘Thank goodness most Americans still don’t endorse them, according to the new Mason-Dixon poll commissioned by the First Liberty Institute, which advocates for religious freedom.’