Poll: Public image of Supreme Court declining

With major changes expected as aging justices leave the bench, 57 percent of people had a favorable view of the court in the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas, who is 56, is under the age of 65. Nominations of new justices are likely in the coming months and years.

For more than a decade, at least seven in 10 people had a favorable view of the high court. In January 2001, just after the court ruled that President Bush was the winner of the 2000 election, 68 percent had a favorable view.

Democrats grew more negative about the court after the 2000 decision on the election, and 51 percent of Democrats now have a positive view. But conservative Republicans have been growing more negative in their views of the court, the poll found. Favorable opinions of the court have dropped by 20 points among conservative Republicans and white evangelical Christians since January 2001.

“The court is taking criticism from both sides of the political spectrum,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. “Liberals lost regard for the court in 2001 following the 2000 election ruling, and the court has lost favor with conservative Republicans, possibly because of their discontent about some big social issues they are focused on.”

People were about evenly split on whether the Senate should consider a judicial nominee’s political views or should only consider the judge’s background, experience and qualifications, according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll released Wednesday.

One issue that is certain to be central in coming battles over the court’s makeup is the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal. Almost two-thirds in the Pew poll oppose “completely overturning” that decision.

Opponents of the decision to make abortion legal appear to be more passionate about the selection of the next justice than those who support Roe v. Wade. Six in 10 opponents of the decision to make abortion legal said the selection of the next justice is very important to them personally, while just four in 10 supporters of that decision felt that way.

Bush’s job approval rating in the Pew poll was 42 percent, the lowest number he’s had in his presidency in that poll — similar to the findings of an AP-Ipsos poll last week that put his approval at 43 percent.

The Pew poll of 1,464 adults was taken June 8-12 and the ABC-Post poll of 1,002 adults was taken June 2-5. Each has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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On the Net:

Pew Research Center: http://www.people-press.org

ABC News — http://abcnews.go.com/politics