New polls show that Americans’ view of the Supreme Court have fallen to a new low after the court allowed Texas’ near-total abortion ban to be implemented, The Washington Post reports.
A Gallup poll released last week shows that only 40% of Americans approve of the job Supreme Court justices are doing, a historic low.
“At this point, less than a majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents approve of the job the court is doing,” according to Gallup.
A new poll by Marquette University Law School found that court’s approval rating falling from 60% in July to 49% in September following the Texas decision.
“Whatever people might have seen as moderation on the court over the past year was followed by these three rulings, right in a row and close together, that all took a conservative tilt,” Charles Franklin, the director of the Marquette poll, told the Post.
Justices push back:
A growing number of justices have publicly spoken out to insist that the court is not being politicized.
“My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said during a speech where she was introduced by Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
Justice Clarence Thomas insisted in a speech at the University of Notre Dame that justices do not rule based on “personal preferences” and said the country’s leaders should not “allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don’t get the outcome that we like.”
Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer has also repeatedly argued that justices do not rule based on their political views.
Concerns over the future of the court:
“Not since Bush v. Gore has the public perception of the court’s legitimacy seemed so seriously threatened,” warned Georgetown Supreme Court Institute executive director Irv Gornstein.
“I worry a great deal about it, because when the public begins to question and doubt the independence of this third, separate but equal branch of government, they’ve got a problem here,” Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski told the Post. “I think the public needs to be able to trust that the judiciary will be that independent, unbiased check” on the political branches.
“I think these last few years have really been very dangerous and potentially devastating to the Supreme Court’s credibility because the public is seeing the court as increasingly political, and the public is right,” said Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal. “The statements by Thomas, Barrett, Breyer, you know, give me a break . . . they are just inherently noncredible.”
