In an era of ethics controversies and contentious nomination processes, fewer Americans approve of the Supreme Court’s job than at any point in the last 20 years, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

Just over 1,800 U.S. adults across the country were polled between last Thursday and Monday, with 35% approving of the Supreme Court’s job and 55% disapproving, a number that ticked up slightly to 57% disapproval when asking just registered voters.

When the polling outfit first asked American adults the question in 2003, the nation’s highest court had a 56% approval rating with 28% disapproving. In the 20 times Qunnipiac has asked registered voters the same question since 2004, no poll has seen as low approval as their most recent one, peaking at 62% in 2009 and seeing highs of 52% as recently as 2020.

In Wednesday’s poll, 65% of Americans said they believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, reflecting polling from last year that showed double-digit majorities disapproving of the decision by the court to overturn Roe v. Wade last June. 

That view manifested itself during last year’s midterm elections when all five states with ballot measures on abortion policy saw results that either strengthened abortion protections or rejected more restrictions. In one exit poll of 21,000 people on Election Day, 60% of voters were either angry or dissatisfied with the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that established the constitutional right to abortion 50 years ago.

The court is currently dominated by a 6-3 conservative majority, with three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, two each by Presidents Barack Obama and George H.W. Bush, and one each by Presidents Joe Biden and George W. Bush.

One justice sticks out in the Quinnipiac poll, however. Views on Justice Clarence Thomas are so poor 46% of Americans think he should resign over recent revelations he received gifts from a billionaire Republican donor, including vacations, private school tuition for a child Thomas was raising, and renovations to Thomas’ mother’s home, which the donor bought and reportedly continues to allow Thomas’ mother to continue to live in after nearly a decade.

Two-thirds of adults think Congress should investigate Thomas, including 65% of independents and 43% of Republicans — a stark number for one of the court’s rightmost judges who was appointed by a Republican president more than 30 years ago.

"Short of extraordinary circumstances, a Supreme Court appointee has the job for life,” Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement. “That threshold may have been crossed in the minds of a majority of Americans who want Justice Clarence Thomas investigated, with a slight plurality saying he should hang up his robe and resign.”

Democrats in the House and the Senate have called for Thomas’ resignation, impeachment hearings, ethics reform, court expansion or term limits in the aftermath of the revelations, first reported by ProPublica last month.

The nonprofit news outlet reported Thomas has spent two decades accepting luxury trips aboard yachts and private jets paid for by Harlan Crow, a billionaire real estate magnate and Republican donor. A single trip to Indonesia in 2019 could have cost north of $500,000 had Thomas paid for it himself, ProPublica estimated.

Crow declined to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, drawing ire from Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

“Harlan Crow believes the secrecy of his lavish gifts to Justice Thomas is more important than the reputation of the highest court of law in this land. He is wrong,” Durbin said in a statement on Tuesday. “As I’ve said many times before: The Chief Justice has the power to establish a credible, enforceable code of conduct for the Court today. However, if the Court will not act, this Committee will.”

After the reports about Crow and Thomas’ relationship began coming out, Durbin invited Chief Justice John Roberts or another justice from the court to testify in front of his committee earlier this year. Roberts declined, writing he was concerned about the constitutional separation of powers between Congress and the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, Roberts hinted at progress on ethics reform in a speech, but insisted the court would do it in ways “that are consistent with our status as an independent branch of government under the Constitution’s separation of powers.”

Crow also paid for the private school tuition of Thomas’ grand-nephew, who the justice raised, according to ProPublica. In a statement to the outlet, Crow didn’t deny the payments and said he provided tuition assistance to “many young Americans.” A friend of Thomas’ who once served as a lawyer for his wife, Ginni Thomas, said in a statement of his own that Crow paid for two years of tuition, which ProPublica estimated was worth around $100,000.

Despite reporting other gifts on disclosure forms during his tenure on the court, the trips and tuition funded by Crow were never reported by Thomas.

A law implemented after Watergate requires judges, including Supreme Court justices, report gifts greater than $415, including travel but not lodging, according to guidance from federal court officials updated in March.

In response to the reporting on the luxury travel in April, Thomas issued a rare statement defending his actions and insisting he complied with disclosure guidelines throughout his time on the bench.

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years. As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” Thomas said. “Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

He then noted guidance had been updated in March “and, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future.”

Crow also funded a political organization founded by Ginni Thomas, Politico first reported in 2011. She has faced scrutiny for her involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

A March poll from Marquette Law School found most Americans felt they didn’t know enough about seven of the Supreme Court’s nine judges to rate them, but 56% disapproved of the court’s collective performance and 44% approved. 

Thomas scored both the second-highest favorable (29%) and unfavorable (32%) ratings in that poll and was the only justice other than Brett Kavanagh where a majority felt they knew enough to form an opinion.

A Gallup poll from September 2022 found 40% of Americans approved of the Supreme Court’s job, the lowest recorded by the polling firm since it began asking the question in 2000.