Roe v. Wade Overturned: Supreme Court Approval Rating in the Proverbial Toilet

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) 

(Always Leading on Tough Issues)

A long and yet very informative and timely article here from VOX with this headline:

“What happens when the public loses faith in the Supreme Court?”

Vox Editor’s note, June 26: The following is an updated version of an essay that originally ran in Vox in May. We are republishing it with revisions in light of the recent Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade.

Historical Background: In an 1832 case called Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation constituted a sovereign entity with rights in its territory that cannot be overruled by state governments. President Andrew Jackson, who supported the seizure of Native lands, was infuriated by Chief Justice John Marshall’s ruling, reportedly saying that “Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

The literal wording of Jackson’s response is likely apocryphal (spurious), but it does capture the essence of his administration’s reaction. State authorities continued and escalated policies of ethnic cleansing blessed by Jackson and the federal government, forcing the Cherokee and other tribes off their lands in brazen defiance of the Worcester ruling.

The Worcester case illustrates something vital about the Court: It only has power inasmuch as people believe it does. Constitutionally, the Court does not have the hard authority of the presidency or Congress. It cannot deploy the military, or cut off funding. It can order others to take actions, but these orders only hold force if the other branches and state governments believe they have to follow them. The Court’s power depends on its legitimacy on a widespread belief among both citizens and politician that following its orders is right and necessary.

That legitimacy has been slowly eroded in recent years. The unprecedented McConnell blockade of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in 2016; the bitter fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 nomination; the GOP’s brazen disregard of the Garland precedent in 2020 to appoint Amy Coney Barrett after Justice Ginsburg’s death; and, the increasingly hardline conservative tilt of Court rulings have combined to do significant damage to the idea that the Court is somehow above politics.

Now many Americans favor radical reforms to the Court: 66% favors term limits for justices. Some 45% favors packing, or expanding, the Court.

The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade is likely to be yet another significant blow to Court legitimacy. The issue is not just that a majority of Americans disagree with the ruling, though recent polling tells us that they almost certainly do. It’s that the process that led to this outcome has repeatedly exposed the Court as a vessel for politics by other means.

In that context, Justice Alito’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health — a wholesale reversal of perhaps the most prominent Supreme Court ruling of the past few decades, one with longstanding majority support — will hit differently than previous controversial Court rulings. The damage could be severe and lasting, worse even than nakedly political decisions like Bush v. Gore.

While it may be tempting to cheer the collapse of the Court’s legitimacy given its track record, that prospect should give us some pause. For better or for worse, the Court is supposed to serve as the final arbiter of political disagreements. If it lacks that legitimate role, it sets the stage for a constitutional crisis especially if Trumps runs in 2024.

How overturning Roe will damage the Court’s legitimacy: In Bush v. Gore, for example, the Court divided along transparently partisan lines to elevate George W. Bush to the presidency, infuriating pretty much the entire Democratic Party. But the damage was not permanent: A 2007 study found that “the Court seems as widely trusted today as it was a decade ago,” with no significant divisions by partisan affiliation. The single best predictor of faith in the Court was not party, but an individual’s ideological commitment to the rule of law.

Since then, however, the American political system has come apart at the seams. Rising political polarization has led partisans on both sides to view politics in more zero-sum terms; rising distrust in mainstream institutions, particularly on the Republican side, has contributed to a general decline in confidence in government. In our system, for better or for worse, the Court is supposed to serve as the final arbiter of political disagreements

In theory, the Court may have been able to survive these anti-establishment headwinds. But since 2016, Republicans have taken a series of steps that have made it hard for anyone to see the Court as standing above politics.

When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously refused to even schedule hearings for Obama’s replacement nominee, current Attorney General Merrick Garland, until after the 2016 election. 

McConnell’s argument was that no justice should be appointed in an election year, but the rationale was clearly political: Garland is a moderate liberal and would have tipped the Court from a 5-4 conservative majority to a 5-4 liberal one.

Then Donald Trump won the 2016 election despite losing the popular vote and proceeded to remake the Court along McConnell’s preferred lines.

First, McConnell got staunch conservative Neil Gorsuch to the Court instead of Garland, thus preserving a 5-4 conservative majority on the court.

Then, McConnell got Brett Kavanaugh confirmed amid a furious battle over Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. It was the most bitter and polarizing hearings in Supreme Court history.

On top of those two, and after Justice Ginsburg died in September 2020, McConnell Trump rushed Amy Coney Barrett onto the Court before the 2020 vote and giving conservatives a 6-3 advantage, and revealing the alleged principle behind the Garland blockade to be a partisan fiction.

McConnell’s attempt to square this circle, citing an alleged norm against the Senate confirming nominations from opposite-party presidents in election years, was risible (fabricated BS).

By September 2021, the Supreme Court’s approval rating had fallen to 40%, the lowest number recorded in over 20 years of Gallup polling. The decline was largest among Democrats but also visible among Republicans — who seem to be turning against institutions writ large in the wake of Trump’s 2020 defeat and subsequent claims that the election was rigged against him.

Another September poll in 2021 from Quinnipiac gave the Court an even lower approval rating, 37% the lowest point in the firm’s polling since 2004.

Then just before the Dobbs decision came out, another Gallup poll found that public confidence in the Court was at an all-time low, with only 25% saying they had a “great deal or quite a lot” of confidence in the Court.

The full detailed article continues from here.

My 2 Cents: Now, since they canned Roe v. Wade, I suspect their approval rating is 10%, or lower, or totally in the toilet. 

Plus, most public opinion polls wanted Roe to stay intact and that was in the 70% or so range. So, happened to majority opinion and majority rule? Seems it’s kaput as they say.

But, this court will on right on cue, if at all, professing “To be non-political.”

Then, I like millions of others will say loudly that is “B capital S.”

Hope you enjoyed this post. If you are outraged then look for ways to take action and help get out the vote to stop the GOP from regaining any more power in Congress, but do it in peaceful non-violent way. No rioting and such.

Thanks for stopping by.