BY JUAN D. SNIDER

According to a nationwide poll conducted in October by a Washington-based organization, African American voters have a very negative opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court and want it reformed.

In its two-page findings shared with news organization, HIT Strategies, an organization that introduces itself on its website as “a firm of young, diverse, innovative social scientists that use research and data to understand and communicate with hard-to-reach and underrepresented voters,” states: “We find that Black voters have an overwhelmingly negative response to recent high profile Supreme Court rulings and are in favor of reforms to make the Court more ethical and balanced, including Supreme Court expansion.”

The survey was conducted on behalf of a coalition named the Just Majority Coalition, with the contribution of several little-known entities: Black Voters Matter, Drum Major Institute, National Action Network, and Demand Justice.

The survey respondents’ dissatisfaction is fueled by several rulings made by the majority-Republican court in recent years, notably the rollback of Affirmative Action in college admissions (71% disapproval) and the court’s decision that removed the legal right to abortion (73% disapproval). In the view of the majority of the respondents, these rulings were in favor of wealthy corporations and very rich white people.

As a result of their displeasure with these rulings, the majority of Black people surveyed said they have lost confidence in the highest court in the land. More than 70% of them hold the view that the ruling of the six-majority Republican members of the court—the most conservative one  in 90 years—on major upcoming cases will not be based on the law. Two thirds of the respondents therefore call for the court “to be completely rebuilt to make just and impartial decisions,” according to the survey.

A whopping 85% feel that it’s a high to medium priority for Congress and the president to reform the court, based on their conviction that the court favors the rich and the powerful: “The Supreme Court should protect the rights of everyone, but the justices are too often giving more rights to the rich and powerful while taking away rights from everyone else,” the survey organizers quote the respondents as saying.

In reaction to the recent rulings of the court along conservative lines, some liberal Americans have suggested that the Democratic administration now in office expand the Supreme Court with liberal justices to shift the court’s balance. The respondents to this survey could not agree more.

The stakes are very high ten months before the 2024 presidential election which will give the majority-conservative members of the high court a chance to show the voters how they want history to remember them. Their ruling scheduled on February 8 about the State of Colorado kicking former President Donald Trump—who appointed three of them—from the ballot, and their likely ruling—if they take up the case—about whether Trump is above the law and cannot be prosecuted for his crimes while he was in office, will go down in history as a judicial landmark.

Ironically, one of the Conservative Six is Black like the respondents in this survey: Clarence Thomas. Many fear the corrupt Thomas–who has taken bribes from several people–will ignore the deluge of calls to recuse himself from voting on the upcoming cases because of his close ties to Trump and his wife’s direct involvement in the Trump-instigated January 6 insurrection.