Americans’ Ratings of the U.S. Supreme Court (Gallup - lower than the President's ratings)

http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/default.aspx?ci=15331&pw=9/13/2005 ^ | September 13, 2005 | Joseph Carroll

[hocndoc]

Gallup uses two questions to gauge Americans’ perceptions of the United States Supreme Court: one that simply asks whether Americans approve or disapprove of the way the court is handling its job and another that asks them to assess the level of confidence they have in the court. Both measures recently showed declines in the public’s perceptions of the high court. Supreme Court Approval Ratings Americans are now more negative than positive in their views of the Supreme Court, with 42% approving and 48% disapproving of the job the court is doing in a late June poll. These ratings are the lowest that Gallup has recorded since it first asked this question in the late summer of 2000.

The latest update, taken from a May 23-26 Gallup Poll, finds that 41% of Americans say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the Supreme Court. This result is one of the lowest that Gallup has recorded since the question was first asked in 1973, and it is also lower than last year’s rating, when 46% of Americans expressed this level of confidence in the court. Since 1973, confidence in the Supreme Court has ranged from a low of 39% in October 1991, around the time of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, to a high of 56% in May 1985 and September 1988. Since June 2001, ratings of the court have slowly and gradually declined. In 2001 and 2002, half of Americans (50%) said they had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the court. This decreased to 47% in 2003, then to 46% in 2004, and finally to 41% this year. The current results show an almost identical decline in confidence ratings among Republicans, independents, and Democrats.

[hocndoc]

I believe that this is free content.

http://media.gallup.com/POLL/focus/sr050322_1.gif

SCOTUS' approval ratings have been steadily falling in both the Dems and Republicans polled.

[MNJohnnie]

Maybe it is time they go back to basing their judgments on US law instead of "foreign Law" and getting favorable press coverage

[NetValue]

Now that the Ninth Circuit has declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, the question should be changed: Do you favor lynching or simple removal from office?

If we are not one nation under God, from where do we get our rights? The state? The court? The congress? Beware the lawyers of the court. They are misleading you.

[drlevy88]

Maybe people are getting tired of a little band of philosophers, that they can't either elect or kick out of office, ruling them like kings.

[highlymotivated]

I'm sure that Congress's rating are into the negative region by now. And well deserved too...

[hocndoc]

This was a point that I made on my blog today, when discussing the judge in Michigan who threw out that State's hard-won legislative and public effort to ban partial birth abortion: it makes me want to read and quote the Declaration of Independence.

[ZULU]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

Perhaps the American people are FINALLY waking up about the menace these radicals present to our Republic and society.

Maybe they will FORCE their legislators to stand up to these outrageous oppressors. The recent idiotic decision about the Pledge of Allegence and the judiciary's constant pandering to wacko minorities and their alleged "rights" while ignoring the rights of the majority will finally come home to roost!!!

[American in Singapore]

This is an issue that Rush has latched on to like a Pit Bull and he is totally correct. These CongressPeople never seem to be accountable to anybody and are allowed to spew their crap endlessly. I think the Repub CongressFolks have pissed him off so much that he is going after the entire Legislative pillar of our federal triumvirate of checks and balances.

[no more apples]

Since the original "checks and balances" in our government have failed, "we the people" are the only thing that can stop a branch of the government that has run away with itself.

[Brilliant]

The Supreme Court is pathetic, and doesn't deserve a rating as high as 42%.

[Ol' Sparky]

Yet, Bush still doesn't have the backbone to nominate a justice that will change the direction of the court.