Wavering reputation of the Supreme Court Ahead

The reputation of the Supreme Court will certainly be getting a jolt this week after confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett. It is not like the Court’s reputation has been strong. In fact it has been losing esteem over many years. Reading an intriguing article in FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s statistical/analytical website, a survey (see below) shows that the reputation of the Supreme Court is nowhere where it used to be in the 1980s. It has suffered a rapid decline in trust since then, plummeting in 2014 and only witnessing a slight lift til now. I was curious why a lift now? FiveThirtyEight’s insight: “The court’s current levels of support may be bolstered by the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts, who has held the crucial “swing” vote since Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018, joined the liberals in several high-profile decisions this year, effectively keeping the court in line with public opinion.” The sense is that if the Court veers too right post-Barrett being seated and in too much opposition to broad public opinion, the Court’s reputation will decline steeply. If people see the Supreme Court as partisan now as they see government, the institution’s reputation will falter. I dare guess that the Court’s reputation for integrity and non-partisanship would be forever impaired if that were the case. We will have a better idea if and when Barrett is confirmed and if ACA is preserved or not. It would be nice to see some federal institutions not lose reputational equity.