Jun 28th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Sotomayor More Popular than Roberts, Alito
More from the Post poll:
The public also says by a 60-34 margin that it wants Roe upheld.
18 Responses to “Sotomayor More Popular than Roberts, Alito”
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June 28th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
It’s Casey not Roe. Le sigh.
June 28th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
The y-axis scale on this graph hurts my brain.
Somebody needs to take a data plotting class.
June 28th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
The public also says by a 60-34 margin that it wants Roe upheld.
Just goes to show you that sixty percent of the public is out of the mainstream.
Who knew?
June 28th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
The Roe question you cite reads:
“The Supreme Court legalized abortion 36 years ago in the ruling known as Roe versus Wade. If that case came before the court again, would you want Sotomayor to vote to (uphold) Roe versus Wade, or vote to (overturn) it?”
The question is, for the most part, factually accurate. But the following question is also factually accurate. Any guess as to what the breakdown on it would look like:
“The Supreme Court overturned laws against abortion in 47 states 36 years ago in the ruling known as Roe versus Wade. Subsequent court decisions, relying on this case as precedent, have struck down nearly every single restriction on abortion at any point during pregnancy. As a result, the United States is generally considered to have the most permissive laws on abortion in the industrialized world. If that case came before the court again, would you want Sotomayor to vote to (uphold) Roe versus Wade, or vote to (overturn) it, given that voting to overturn it would allow each individual state to decide to what degree abortion should be legal in that state?”
June 28th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
In other news, donuts are more popular than brussel sprouts.
Since when is getting on the court about popularity?
June 28th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I assume this has more to do with obama’s greater popularity at this point than bush’s popularity at the points in the graph above than any concern among the American public for any of these jurists’ judicial philosophy, no?
June 28th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Since when is getting on the court about popularity?
Of course it’s about popularity. The fate of the nomination will be determined by a Senate vote, and senators tend to be poll-watching ninnies.
June 28th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
I assume this has more to do with obama’s greater popularity at this point than bush’s popularity at the points in the graph above than any concern among the American public for any of these jurists’ judicial philosophy, no?
Well, maybe. But Bush became a lot less popular between that first Roberts poll and that last Alito poll (Katrina, Schiavo), and that doesn’t really show up in the polling results. It’s more like 55-60% of the public is going to support a superficially qualified and not obviously insane nominee, regardless of ideology.
June 28th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
“As a result, the United States is generally considered to have the most permissive laws on abortion in the industrialized world.”
Well, that is a lie. Please show where that is “generally” believed, and how that “general” belief can be reconciled with the many restrictions on abortion—e.g., the partial birth abortion ban—that don’t exist in other countries but exist federally or at the state level in the US.
June 28th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
tomenos:
Are you kidding? Abortion is much more heavily regulated in virtually every country in Europe.
The following website has a nice summary : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6235557.stm
I’ve reproduced the entries on France and Germany here for example (these countries are neither most nor the least restrictive in Europe).
FRANCE
Availability: On request
Gestational limit: 12 weeks
Conditions: The woman must claim to be in a “state of distress” because of her pregnancy. After 12 weeks, abortions are allowed only if the pregnancy poses a grave danger to the woman’s health or there is a risk the child will suffer from a severe illness recognised as incurable. If this is the case, two doctors must confirm the risk to the health of the woman or foetus.
A pregnant girl under the age of 16 may ask for an abortion without consulting her parents first. But she has to be accompanied by an adult of her choice.
Conscientious objection allows professionals to decline involvement in procedures, but they must inform the patient without delay.
GERMANY
Availability: On request
Gestational limit: 12 weeks
Conditions: The woman must receive proper counselling three days before the procedure. The state-regulated counselling is required to inform the woman that the unborn have a right to life and to try to convince her to continue her pregnancy.
The procedure is not covered by public health insurance except for women with low income. The law includes penalties for people who force a pregnant woman to obtain an abortion or who induce a pregnant woman to have an abortion by maliciously withholding support payments.
Most of these restrictions are not allowable under Roe. And NARAL would cry to the havens if there was ever a serious move to implement such restrictions here.
June 28th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
As with Roberts, the Sotomayor confirmation battle was over within 48 hours of the announcement. Since then, it has just been a series of self-inflicted wounds by “conservatives” for no particular purpose.
As a result, the United States is generally considered to have the most permissive laws on abortion in the industrialized world.
First, Canada has no special laws at all regarding abortion. So unless you are claiming Canada isn’t industrialized, this is a blatant falsehood.
Second, in Europe it is true there tend to be earlier cutoffs for abortion without special cause. However, before that point abortions are often publicly-funded, and generally there are far fewer things like U.S.-style notification laws and other roundabout ways of making abortions harder to obtain in practice.
So, this particular talking point is really derived from pretending there is only one dimension along which abortion laws can be measured, and ignoring the other relevant dimensions, purely for rhetorical effect. Oh, and Canada just gets ignored.
June 28th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
The following question is also factually accurate: “sd is a liar. Should sd be pitied or just laughed at?”
June 28th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
C’mon, Matt, you know perfectly well that the public is at best vaguely informed about currently minor political issues like Sotomayor, and thus polling results are easily manipulable by how the survey is constructed.
Not surprisingly, the poll didn’t have a question like, “Judge Sotomayor voted against New Haven fireman Frank Ricci’s being promoted despite passing his promotional test on affirmative action grounds. Do you approve?”
If they’d then asked about approval of Sotomayor, her approval rating would be quite a bit lower.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Typical media bias. If the question had read “Judge Sotomayor once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Should Congress confirm her to the Supreme Court?” the poll responses would look a lot different.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Sometimes when questions are different the answers aren’t the same.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:21 am
The public disagrees with her on affirmative action.
“Voters disagree with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s controversial ruling in the New Haven firefighters’ reverse-discrimination case by more than three-to-one, a new poll shows.
Voters also strongly oppose using affirmative action programs to increase diversity, according to the Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday morning.
“If you look at the data,” Quinnipiac Assistant Director Peter Brown tells Newsmax, “what’s most interesting is how large their objection is for diversity being a reason for affirmative action. The numbers are staggeringly negative.”
In an unusual survey of 3,100 voters — most national polls rely on about 1,200 respondents – voters by 71 to 19 percent think Sotomayor was wrong to permit New Haven to throw out the results of a promotional exam for firefighters, simply because no African-Americans scored well enough to qualify for promotion.
Asked if Sotomayor’s ruling, which has been appealed to the Supreme Court and may be overturned, would make them less likely to support Sotomayor’s confirmation, 28 percent said they would be less likely to support her. Fifty-nine percent said her ruling would make no difference in terms of their support.
The results indicate Sotomayor and President Obama could be seriously out of step with voters on the importance of hiring decisions blind to a person’s race or personal background, especially in the midst of a serious economic downturn when workers are competing for jobs.
By a 59 to 27 percent margin, even Democrats thought New Haven was wrong to disregard the results of the exam.”
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/sotomayor_affirmatitive/2009/06/03/221058.html
June 29th, 2009 at 6:36 am
In an unusual survey of 3,100 voters — most national polls rely on about 1,200 respondents – voters by 71 to 19 percent think Sotomayor was wrong to permit New Haven to throw out the results of a promotional exam for firefighters, simply because no African-Americans scored well enough to qualify for promotion.
Yeah, except that article didn’t accurately report on the poll in question, thanks to Quinnipiac itself misrepresenting the poll:
Quinnipiac misrepresents own poll to assert broad disagreement with Sotomayor
As that article goes on to explain, that poll question also failed to present New Haven’s actual argument, which was that the disparate impact arising under the test results would have subjected the City to potential liability under Title VII.
Of course the general lesson here is that public opinion polls on most specific legal cases are pretty much useless. Most of the public isn’t going to be well-informed on the facts of the case, the procedural posture, the arguments of the parties, the applicable laws and precedents, and so on, and even a pollster operating in good faith is typically going to be unable to convey all of that in a poll question.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:25 am
That’s because she’s wiser than Roberts or Alito.
/schadenfreude