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Informed Citizens

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A national survey, conducted by Marquette Law School and published in November 2022, revealed that 56% of the public disapprove of the job that the U.S. Supreme Court is doing. A Gallup poll in September 2022 put the number at 58% disapproval.

Ken I. Kersch, a political science professor at Boston College and author of The Supreme Court and American Political Development, says the Court has faced disapproval since its inception.

“The history of the Supreme Court is rife with outbreaks of attacks on individual Supreme Court decisions, and on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary more generally,” Professor Kersch says. “Supreme Court justices have often been politicians before serving on the bench. This means that they have ties to political parties, which often take positions on constitutional issues when campaigning for election. And, just as is the case today, they have often been identified with distinctive, and even antagonistic, approaches to interpreting and applying the Constitution.” Read More

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