From Yahoo:
“Supreme Court decisions: Poll finds SCOTUS is deeply unpopular
ahead of major rulings”
(The Supreme Court justices in 2022.)
A new poll has found that the Supreme Court is deeply
unpopular as it prepares to hand down a slate of decisions on LGBTQ rights,
affirmative action and President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. A
national survey from Quinnipiac University released Wednesday found just 30% of
registered voters approve of the court’s job performance, while 59% disapprove
— the lowest rating since the poll began asking the question in 2004. Only 11%
of respondents identifying as Democrats and 29% of those identifying as
independents approved of the court.
Additionally, 68% of Americans think the Supreme Court is
mainly motivated by politics versus 25% who think it's motivated by the law.
The idea of imposing term limits on the justices received bipartisan majority
support (63%) while just 29% were opposed. A slim majority of Republicans (51%)
favored imposing term limits, together with 78% of Democrats and 63% of
independents.
Major decisions ahead Over the next few weeks the court’s 6-3 conservative majority
is expected to hand down a number of major decisions. Earlier this month in a
surprise ruling, two of the conservative justices flipped to rule in favor of
Black voters in Alabama who said the state had violated the Voting Rights Act
via gerrymandering. Last year, the court issued a series of rulings that
were unpopular with the American public, most notably a decision that
overturned Roe v. Wade. Among the cases the Supreme Court will be
issuing rulings on before the term ends are challenges to race-conscious
admission policies — or affirmative action — at Harvard, which is a private
institution, and the University of North Carolina, which is a state school.
These cases are known as Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North
Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard
College. They’re also considering challenges to the White House’s
student loan debt relief plan, which is being challenged by six Republican-led
states and two borrowers who did not qualify for the program. These cases are
known as Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown. The
court will also rule on an attempt by the GOP-controlled North Carolina
legislature to reimpose a congressional map that was thrown out by the state
Supreme Court (Moore v. Harper). If the North Carolina legislature wins its
case, it could give state legislatures nationwide near-total control over how
federal elections are conducted. Additionally, the court will decide
whether a Colorado web designer is legally allowed to refuse to create wedding
websites for same-sex couples (303 Creative LLC v. Elenis). A state law would
fine her for discrimination if she did so, but the designer is arguing that
it’s a violation of her First Amendment rights to be forced to create something
to which she objects.
Lingering scandals The Quinnipiac survey was conducted
from Saturday through Monday, meaning all of the opinions were recorded before
ProPublica published a report Tuesday evening about conservative Justice Samuel
Alito. According to the outlet, Alito and prominent conservative legal activist
Leonard Leo went on an unreported luxury fishing trip with a Republican
billionaire who had business before the court. Alito did not disclose
the trip or respond to ProPublica’s inquiries. He did, however, publish an op-ed
in the Wall Street Journal defending himself from allegations in the article
while admitting that he went on the trip. The Alito news was only the
latest report to come out in recent months about the court’s conservative
justices. ProPublica published a series of stories about the close ties between
conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and a different Republican billionaire,
Harlan Crow. Additionally, the Washington Post reported undisclosed
payments from Leo to Thomas’s wife, Ginny, a conservative activist who pushed
to overturn the 2020 election results. Another Republican-appointed
justice, Neil Gorsuch, has recently been criticized for selling a tract of land
to the head of a law firm that argues cases before the court. Liberal critics
have also highlighted the work of Chief Justice John Roberts’s wife, who has
made millions of dollars as a recruiter for elite law firms and corporations.
In a Wednesday op-ed, the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial
board came to the defense of Alito, arguing that he had not violated ethics
rules alleging that he was the victim of a baseless smear campaign. “This
isn’t about ethics,” the op-ed said. “This is about the left’s fury at having
lost control of the Court, which they had counted on for decades as a second
legislature to impose their priorities when they couldn’t persuade Congress.
They can’t accept that loss, and they will destroy the Court if they must to
get that control back.”
Numerous polls find the court lacks public support The Quinnipiac poll is only the
latest one showing a lack of public support for the nation’s highest court.
Gallup polling last summer found record low approval for the institution, while
a September Marquette Law School poll found that 51% of Americans favored
expanding the Supreme Court. An April Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that
only 12% of Americans surveyed reported that they had a great deal of
confidence in the Supreme Court, with 25% saying they had none. Forty-four
percent of respondents in total said they had confidence in the way the court
was handling its job, versus 45% who disapproved.
^ I am one of the 59% of Americans who think this Current US
Supreme Court is not doing a good job. I’m also one of the 68% of Americans who
think this Current US Supreme Court is motivated by Politics rather than the
Law. ^
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