Knowledge About Supreme Court Vacancies May Affect Polling Results

The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia came as quite a shock to the public this week, and has raised many questions about what happens next now that there is a vacancy. The death of Scalia, the notorious supporter of conservatism, has raised many opinions about who should choose the next justice, whether a justice should be chosen now, or whether it would be best to wait until after the 2016 election.

In a report by the New York Times earlier this week, the poll results of a poll taken by Morning Consult showed that forty-six percent of registered voters said the next justice should be nominated by the president this year, while thirty-nine percent said the winner of the 2016 election should be the one to put forth a nominee. According to the report, seventy-five percent of the people surveyed said they had heard “some” or “a lot” about the death of Scalia, but it was impossible to tell how much the individuals surveyed knew about Supreme Court vacancies.

It makes sense as to why people wouldn’t know very much about the process of vacancies, seeing as the last time a vacancy occurred during an election year was almost 50 years ago, during the last term of Lyndo

n B. Johnson. Having that in mind, the New York Times asking Morning Consult to add a few questions to the survey about Supreme Court vacancies to reveal how much those being surveyed knew about the process. For examples, individuals surveyed would be asked about the average number of days from the time of nomination to vote for a successor (25), the longest number of days for a nominee’s confirmation (125), and the number of days Obama has left in office (340).

The results showed that respondents were more likely to say the justice should be nominated this year when given more historical context. However, the results also changed when the question of when the next judge should be selected was phrased in different ways. When asked who should do the nominating instead of when the nominating should take place, the number of respondents saying that the winner of the 2016 election should make the decision rose to 44 percent from 39 percent. This reveals that President Obama also plays a key role in the opinions of registered voters concerning this issue. During his presidency, Obama has taken a lot of heat for his policies. Some politicians and spectators believe that the policies are getting criticism by Americans simply because Obama is the one initiating them. In my opinion, this is another example of people not wanting something simply because Obama has the power to choose the course of action. Also, Justice Scalia was a strong conservative, and often conservatives would outrank liberals in court decisions 5-4. Due to his death, the Democrats have a chance to nominate a liberal justice, therefore turning the tables on issues in the Supreme Court. In this time of conflictual political culture, the Republicans in Congress, already feeling not politically tolerant of Obama, will no doubt do all they can to try and prevent Obama’s nominee from reaching the Supreme Court.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/upshot/should-obama-pick-nominee-your-answer-may-depend-on-how-much-history-you-know.html?ref=topics