Issue Preferences and Evaluations of the U.S. Supreme Court

While some previous studies have found that public support forthe Supreme Court is related to the ideological direction ofits decisions, these studies were based on data from the WarrenCourt era, a period of high profile judicial liberalism. Sincethen, the Court has grown much more conservative, although itsdecisions have carried a much lower profile. We show that themass media have done little to allow ordinary Americans to followthis change. As a consequence, we find that public evaluationsin the 1990s continued to reflect a 1960s understanding of theCourt, with liberals on racial and gender issues as well asthose least fearful of crime evaluating the Court most favorably.Only those who are both knowledgeable and highly motivated tofollow Court outputs tracked its rightward shift on issues thatare important to them.