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The US Supreme Court recently witnessed a decline in public confidence due to several ethics controversies surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas. According to the Marquette Law School Poll, the court’s approval rating has dropped to 41%, a significant decrease of six percentage points since January. Alarmingly, only 25% of individuals expressed a great deal or a lot of confidence in the court, marking the lowest figure recorded since polling began in 2019.
While the court has yet to rule on major cases of its term, such as race-conscious college admissions and President Joe Biden’s student-loan relief plan, it has faced intense scrutiny in recent months. Much of this attention can be attributed to the long-standing relationship between Justice Thomas and Harlan Crow, a Republican megadonor and Dallas real estate mogul.
Reports by ProPublica shed light on Thomas and his wife enjoying luxury vacations sponsored by Crow over a span of two decades, with travels aboard Crow’s yacht and private jet. Subsequent investigations revealed that Crow had purchased Thomas’s childhood home in Georgia from the justice and his relatives, in addition to funding private schooling for Thomas’s grandnephew.
As a consequence, Justice Thomas’s unfavorable ratings have risen from 32% in March to 36% in the latest poll, making him the justice with the highest unfavorable ratings among the nine. Moreover, only 25% of respondents expressed a favorable opinion of Thomas, a decline from 29% in March.
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The court’s approval rating had previously hit its lowest point at 38% in July, following landmark decisions that overturned the constitutional right to abortion and expanded gun rights. In 2020, the court’s approval rate stood at 66%, just before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing allowed former President Donald Trump to make his third appointment, tilting the court further to the right.
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Nevertheless, despite the decline in public confidence, the US Supreme Court still maintains higher levels of respect compared to other national institutions, including the presidency, Congress, and the media. Furthermore, the poll reveals that 26% of respondents consider the justices’ honesty and ethical standards to be high or very high, surpassing the figures for journalists (19%), lawyers (14%), and cable-TV news (8%).
The Marquette Law School Poll, conducted from May 8 to 18, had a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points, indicating the reliability of the gathered data.
The US Supreme Court is experiencing a significant decline in public approval, primarily attributed to the ethics controversies surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas. With the court’s approval rating at a mere 41% and only a quarter of individuals expressing substantial confidence, this development calls for attention and further scrutiny. The impact of these controversies on the court’s forthcoming rulings remains to be seen, but it is evident that the court’s integrity and public perception are at stake.
