The Marquette School of Law released its latest national survey of Americans' view of the U.S. Supreme Court.The poll shows that approval of the court has dropped form 66% two years ago, to just 40% this year.
Charles Franklin, poll director at Marquette School of Law, joined KMOX to talk about why perception of the court has changed so dramatically. He said one of the first indicators of a shift in approval was when the court chose not to decide on the Texas six-week abortion ban. But then, it dropped even further this summer.
"Once the abortion decision, the Dobbs case was decided this June, we saw approval plummet to 38%," he said. "And now back up to 40%, with 60% disapproving, so quite a sharp drop, pretty easily linked to court decisions regarding abortion. Not just overturning Roe, but also the earlier Texas case."
But do the Justices care about their approval rating? Franklin said that Chief Justice John Roberts recently gave a talk saying people should be able to disagree with the Court's decisions without questioning its legitmacy. Franklin said that shows some level of concern from Roberts.
He added that there are some decisions from the Court that people do generally support, like the concealed carry decision, gay marriage, and extending anti-discrimination laws to cover sex, sexuality and gender. But the widespead disapproval likely comes from which decisions are discussed more in media.
"So there are there are three cases in which there's strong approval for actions the court's taken, but the one that's gotten the most attention, and that has, arguably very large political consequences for the country on that one," Franklin said.
Hear more from Charles Franklin on the Supreme Court approval poll:
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