NEW YORK TIMES: Just 44 percent of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing and three-quarters say the justices’ decisions are sometimes influenced by their personal or political views, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News.
Those findings are a fresh indication that the court’s standing with the public has slipped significantly in the past quarter-century, according to surveys conducted by several polling organizations. Approval was as high as 66 percent in the late 1980s, and by 2000 approached 50 percent.
The decline in the court’s standing may stem in part from Americans’ growing distrust in recent years of major institutions in general and the government in particular. But it also could reflect a sense that the court is more political, after the ideologically divided 5-to-4 decisions in Bush v. Gore, which determined the 2000 presidential election, and Citizens United, the 2010 decision allowing unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions… (more)
EDITOR: The Bush v. Gore involvement was in flagrant violation of the U. S. Constitution which calls for the House of Representatives to resolve such conflicts on a one vote per state basis. Bush would have won.
Citizens United was a totally egregious piece of legislation by the Court on behalf of the right wing of the Republican Party and the top 1/10th of 1% who have vast wealth, the issue decided not even being part of the case before them.
What is surprising is that it has the confidence of 44% of the population.
