It took a while, but I am returning to a question I wrote about in a previous post: ""When the Supreme Court decides an important constitutional case, should it only consider the legal issues, or should it also consider what the majority of the public thinks about that subject?" It was asked in 1987, 2005, 2013 (twice), and 2015. In my previous post, I noted that there was a strong relationship to education: more educated people were more likely to say it should only consider the legal issues. I also noted that support for the "legal issues" option seemed to be increasing. Now I want to connect those, by considering the relationship between education and opinions at three different times, 1987, 2005, and 2015. On the average, educational levels have been rising as older generations are replaced by more educated younger ones, so it's reasonable to ask if the increase in support for "only consider the legal" issues just reflects rising levels of education--in fact, it's possible that support has been declining within educational categories. There's also a question of whether the educational differences have remained constant. The following table gives opinions in the form x-y, where x is the percent saying "only legal issues" and y is the percent saying consider what the majority thinks--they add to less than 100 because some people said that it should be some of both:
1987 2005 2015
No HS diploma 15-81 23-72 29-69
HS only 26-70 40-57 43-54
Some college 39-59 57-39 60-37
College grad 62-35 66-29 74-24
There was a strong relationship to education at all three times, but support for the "only legal issues" option rose in all educational groups. As I mentioned before, the 1987 figures may have been affected by the context--the survey was taken during the nomination of Robert Bork, who seemed to delight in taking unpopular positions--but there was also an increase from 2005 to 2015 in all educational groups. Also, there was little or no relationship between opinions and partisanship in 1987--to the extent that support for "only legal issues" was a reaction against Bork, you'd expect it to be more popular among Democrats. (There was also no clear relationship to partisanship in 2005; Republicans were a little more likely to favor considering the majority in 2015).
Many accounts of recent politics hold that there's been a shift towards "populism" in a broad sense--a belief that the public should decide directly rather than leaving it to experts and authorities. There's certainly some evidence supporting that, particularly the decline in confidence for most institutions.
There have been a few questions about the power of the Supreme Court over the years. In 1957, Gallup asked "Some people say that the Supreme Court has too much power these days. Do you agree or disagree with this?" Then in 1982 a CBS News/NY Times survey asked " Some people think the Supreme Court has taken too much power that should belong to the President and Congress. Other people think the Supreme Court has been carrying out its proper responsibilities under our system of government. Do you think the Supreme Court has taken too much power, or is it carrying out its proper responsibilities, or don't you know enough about this to have an opinion?" Finally, starting in 2015, the Pew Research Center has asked "Do you think the US Supreme Court has too much power, too little power, or the right amount of power?" They're not identical, but seem similar enough that a comparison is reasonable. The results:
Too much Not too much
1957 26% 53%
1982 17% 39%
2015 36% 61%
2019 21% 74%
2020 33% 65%
2022 (Jan) 41% 58%
2022 (Aug) 45% 53%
Belief that it had too much power has increased in the last few years (interestingly, it was almost as high in January 2022 as in August), but didn't show much trend before then. So, as I've suggested before, the decline in institutional confidence might involve a distrust of politics rather than a distrust in "experts".
[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]
Interesting piece David, thanks! I wonder, you say "a belief that the public should decide directly rather than leaving it to experts and authorities.". Your sentence seems to imply that the terms "experts" and "authorities" are interchangeable. Is that how you mean it? i.e., both "experts" and "authorities" would be appointed or hired officials. But if that's so there's a category missing between "public should decide directly" and "experts and authorities" - the elected representatives of the people. I guess - I don't know where I got this or why I think this - but my thinking has always been that, traditionally, in the US, elected representatives make law taking into account both the views of experts and the views of the people. Then it's the job of the courts to uphold and interpret those laws. I feel like that's a subtlety that doesn't quite get exposed in these surveys. I wonder how much the public understands that distinction or how that concept plays into the public's thinking if at all. Thanks again, David.
ReplyDeleteBy experts, I meant people who are supposed to have specialized knowledge; authorities are people who have an institutional position that gives them the right to make decisions. So authorities would include elected officials. I mentioned them both because views of experts and authorities might not go in parallel. See today's (Nov 29) post for more on that issue.
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