{"id":15372,"date":"2013-10-07T12:57:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T17:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/supreme-court-starts-new-term-coming-off-record-low-ratings\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:29:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:29:32","slug":"supreme-court-starts-new-term-coming-off-record-low-ratings","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2013\/10\/07\/supreme-court-starts-new-term-coming-off-record-low-ratings\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court starts new term coming off record-low ratings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FT_Scotus_Favorability\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

The Supreme Court began its new term<\/a> today after a year in which it rendered far-reaching decisions on same-sex marriage<\/a> and the Voting Rights Act<\/a>. The previous term was one that left the high court with the lowest favorability ratings registered in nearly three decades of Pew Research Center polling.<\/p>\n\n

In\u00a0our most recent survey<\/a> in\u00a0July,\u00a048% of Americans expressed a favorable view of the court while 38% regarded it unfavorably, the first time the positive number had edged below the 50% mark. Prior to the decisions handed down in June, a March survey<\/a> found 52% viewed the court favorably while 31 % had an unfavorable opinion. As recently as 2007, nearly three-quarters (72%) of Americans had viewed the court positively.<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

\"FT_Partisan_scotus\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

While the court\u2019s favorability declined this year, partisan differences in opinions about it narrowed. Overall, 54% of Democrats in the July survey had a favorable view of the court as did 48% of Republicans, with 47% of independents sharing that view. In a July 2012 survey, after the court upheld the new health care law<\/a>, the number of Republicans holding a favorable view of the court dropped to 38% compared to 56% who had a positive view in April. After the health care decision, the number of Democrats expressing a favorable view increased 12 points, from 52% to 64%.<\/p>\n\n

The July survey found the public had mixed opinions about the ideology of the court. About four-in-ten (42%) considered the justices middle-of-the-road, while 26% said the court was liberal and 23% said it was conservative.<\/p>\n\n

Conservatives and liberals had markedly different views of the court\u2019s ideology. Fully half of conservative Republicans labeled the court as liberal while 40% of liberal and only 8% saw it as conservative. Four-in-ten liberal Democrats viewed the court as conservative and only 19% saw it as liberal.<\/p>\n\n

Opinion of the court among blacks plummeted after the June decisions, which included the closely-watched voting rights case. In March, 61% of blacks regarded the court favorably, a number that dropped to 44% in July.\u00a0This was among the lowest favorable ratings for the Court among blacks in polling dating to 1985.<\/p>\n\n

The court will return to the issue of campaign finance when it hears arguments on Tuesday in a case that challenges limits on political contributions<\/a> to candidates. One of the last major campaign finance rulings by the court was its Citizens United decision<\/a> in 2010 in which it held the government could not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates.<\/p>\n\n

A January 2012 survey<\/a> found that, among those voters who were aware of the Citizens United decision, 65% said the ruling allowing independent expenditures had had a negative effect on the that year\u2019s campaign compared to 16% who said the effect was positive.<\/p>\n\n

The court\u2019s upcoming agenda again includes a host of politically and socially contentious issues.<\/p>\n\n

It will hear a case challenging President Obama\u2019s ability to bypass the Senate by making recess appointments<\/a>, an highly partisan issue. There are two abortion cases on the docket, one involving a Massachusetts law restricting protests near reproductive health care facilities<\/a> and the other on whether states can limit the use of abortion-inducing drugs<\/a>. The court will also hear an affirmative action case<\/a> involving a Michigan voter initiative that banned the use of racial preferences in admissions to state public universities.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court began its new term today, after seeing its favorability ratings drop following rulings during its last term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[78],"bylines":[859],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[520],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-15372","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-supreme-court","bylines-bruce-drake","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-politics"],"label":"Short 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