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The Supreme Court starts its new term with dismal approval ratings

Public opinion of the court is strongly polarized along partisan lines.

At the time of publication, an average of 38 percent of Americans approved of the job the Supreme Court is doing while 54 percent disapproved, for an average net approval rating of -16 percentage points.

Some of the major cases the court will take up in the next few months include challenges to the Chevron doctrine, a somewhat arcane precedent that would severely restrict the government’s regulatory powers if overturned, and a law restricting access to guns for individuals subject to domestic violence orders. There’s also a lawsuit challenging the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a case dealing with retaliations against whistleblowers. Another case that hasn’t officially been taken up, but that the court is almost certain to hear, is an appeal of a district court ruling restricting access to the common abortion drug mifepristone. The high court put that ruling on hold temporarily while it considers whether to hear the case.

“I think these are fairly normal cases, and they’re not going to shake public opinion up too much,” particularly among those who already have unfavorable opinions of the court, said Michael Salamone, a political scientist at Washington State University who studies public opinion and the Supreme Court. Unless there are a lot of surprising liberal decisions in the next term that cut against the court’s conservative image, Salamone argued, the needle isn’t likely to move much. Any of these cases could result in surprising coalitions or more backroom deal-making between swing justices. But as long as the court’s rulings remain as ideologically extreme as it’s been the past few years, expect the public’s polarized — and negative — views of the institution to remain.

Read the full story:
ABC News/538

On Supreme Court, Does 9-0 Add Up to More Than 5-4?

Michael Salamone
Michael Salamone

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a remarkable number of unanimous decisions last term, and in their public remarks the justices seemed unanimous in saying that unanimity was a good thing. But is it?

Michael F. Salamone, a political scientist at WSU, has designed experiments to test whether the public is more apt to accept unanimous decisions than divided ones.

Related research citing Salamone’s work concluded that “the idea that 5-4 decisions pose a serious problem of credibility or legitimacy [for the court] remains an unproven hypothesis.”  How hard, then, should the justices work to achieve unanimity?

Read more about Salamone’s research in the ABA Journal; also in the New York Times (subscription required).

The Ruling on Peyote that Helped Hobby Lobby Win

Carolyn Long
Carolyn Long

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Hobby Lobby decision, Carolyn Long, associate professor of the School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs at WSU Vancouver, explained the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the basis of the court’s ruling.

RFRA was adopted after a 1990 Supreme Court decision denied unemployment benefits to two Native American men who used peyote in a religious ritual.

Hear Professor Long on The Takeaway with John Hockenberry.