With a majority having an unfavorable view of the U.S. Supreme Court, Connecticut voters across parties favor reforms including ending lifetime appointments and establishing a binding ethics code for justices, according to a poll conducted for The Connecticut Mirror. But there are partisan divides over whether recent court rulings will affect how they vote in the Nov. 5 presidential election as well as whether they agree with landmark decisions on reproductive rights and presidential immunity. Democrats overwhelmingly viewed the high court unfavorably at 85%, while more than two-thirds of Republicans have a favorable view. More than half of independents have an unfavorable impression of the Supreme Court. Among all voters polled, almost half considered the Supreme Court to be one of the most important issues this election cycle. But it widely varied by party: 65% of Democrats see the court as a key issue, 25% of Republicans and 50% of independents. But there is more support from Connecticut voters across political ideologies on modifying how the Supreme Court is structured and governed, though Democrats and independents more strongly favor such changes than Republican voters. When it comes to how long each of the nine justices serve, nearly all Democratic voters polled either strongly or somewhat support changing it to a single 18-year term, while a little over half of Republicans and nearly three-quarters of independents back it. [Got questions about the upcoming election? Check out CT Mirror’s 2024 voter guide here] A constitutional amendment would be needed to enact such a change to justices’ terms, which takes a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress as well as ratification by three-quarters of states. The topic of an ethics code for justices has been raised particularly after news about Justice Clarence Thomas’ undisclosed gifts and deals. Since then, the justices themselves have implemented one, but it is unenforceable. The court does have general ethics rules related to recusals and financial disclosures. Connecticut’s Democratic U.S. senators, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, have also pushed for more transparency. Murphy has introduced the Supreme Court Ethics Act every session of Congress over the past decade. His bill would task the Judicial Conference — a body created by Congress that considers policy related to the federal courts — with writing an ethics code to govern all federal judges, including the nine justices. Reforms to the Supreme Court have been floated more in recent years, though ideas such as adding more justices to the bench, also known as court packing, do not have as much widespread support. But some Supreme Court reforms have received more attention and high-profile support from the current administration. A week after dropping out of the presidential race, President Joe Biden proposed an 18-year term and an enforceable code for justices as well as a constitutional amendment that would deny former presidents immunity for crimes committed while they served in office. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now the Democratic presidential nominee, supports his proposal. [RELATED: CT Mirror poll shows Harris leading Trump by 16 points in state] Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have largely opposed changing the structure of the high court. But GOP voters surveyed in Connecticut deviated more from the national trend and are more supportive of term limits and a code of conduct. While there is more consensus on reforms across party affiliation, there is a big gap on how they align with some of the more controversial decisions of the past few years. Ninety-three percent of Democratic voters believe the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade was the wrong decision. Nearly two-thirds of independents disagree with it. Republicans largely agree with the court’s decision but did not have the same overwhelming margins as Democrats on the issue: 67% believe it was the right decision and 16% thought it was the wrong. A larger group of 18% of Republican voters said they did not know or refused to answer the question. The June 2022 decision struck down a long-standing case that protected a right to an abortion up until fetal viability and brought the issue to the states. Connecticut codified similar abortion protections into state law in 1990. But in the wake of the decision, more than a dozen states have effectively banned abortions, while others have imposed limits that are weeks earlier than fetal viability, according to KFF. The issue of reproductive rights and care emerged as a top issue in the 2022 midterm elections and could play another major role in the Nov. 5 elections. In the survey, Connecticut voters were also split on how they ranked abortion as an issue of importance: 72% among Democrats, ranking it their second-most important issue, and 14% among Republicans, who put it toward the bottom of the list. Connecticut voters have similar views of the high court’s decision to shield former presidents from prosecution for official acts. For Democratic voters, 91% believe it was wrongly decided, while 69% of Republicans agree with it. The July 2024 case was a major win for Trump, who was indicted in an election interference case for efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. The indictment included allegations that he pressured state officials, as well as then-Vice President Mike Pence, who oversaw Congress’ certification of the results on Jan. 6, 2021. Along ideological lines, the majority of the justices ruled that the former president can not be prosecuted “for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.” Voters indicated the same trends when asked if recent court decisions would affect whom they support for president: 76% of Democratic voters said it would influence their choice, while 77% of GOP voters said it would not play a role. Independents were almost evenly split over whether the rulings would factor into their decision. The CT Mirror survey of 800 likely voters was conducted from Sept. 12 to 18 by The MassINC Polling Group and made possible through a grant from the Knight Election Hub. Voters were contacted via a text message invitation to an online survey and by live telephone interviewers calling landlines and cell phones. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.