Americans Are Now Evenly Divided on Whether They Approve of Supreme Court's Work
A new poll shows a rise in disapproval for the U.S. Supreme Court after its ruling upholding the health care law.
Americans are now evenly divided on whether they approve of the job the court is doing, according to the New York Times and CBS News, reporting on a poll by the two publications. Forty-one percent said they approve and an equal percentage said they disapprove.
A poll taken a few weeks before the decision showed 44 percent approved of the court’s work while 36 percent disapproved.
In the new poll, 53 percent said they thought the health law decision was based mainly on personal and political views, rather than legal analysis. Forty-six percent said the decision to uphold most of the law was a good thing, while 41 percent thought it was bad. But 50 percent disapproved of the law itself, while 36 percent approved.
A prior poll by the Pew Research Center found that only 55 percent of the public was aware that the court had upheld most of the law. Thirty percent said they didn’t know how the court had ruled and 15 percent thought the court had struck down most of the law.
The more recent poll also found little familiarity with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who cast the deciding vote to uphold the law’s insurance mandate. More than half of those polled said they had not heard enough about Roberts to have an opinion about him. Another 20 percent were undecided about the chief justice.
