Subject: Re: [EL] Public Response to Bush v. Gore
From: Rick Hasen
Date: 9/27/2010, 3:46 PM
To: "Rick.Hasen@lls.edu" <Rick.Hasen@lls.edu>
CC: Rick Hasen <hasenr@gmail.com>, "election-law@mailman.lls.edu" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>
Reply-to:
"rick.hasen@lls.edu"

I forgot to include the information in this footnote:

It is also interesting that retrospective views on the fairness of the 2000 election have hardened over time. Although 44% of Democrats called the 2000 election somewhat or very unfair in 2000, in 2002 that number rose to 68% and in 2004 it rose again to 75.2%. On the other side of the aisle, 24.9% of Republicans called the 2000 election somewhat or very unfair in 2000, compared to 10.2% who viewed the 2000 election that way in 2002 and 14% who viewed it that way in 2004. Id.

On 9/27/2010 3:17 PM, Rick Hasen wrote:
Here's more, from my 2004 article, Beyond the Margin of Litigation:

These data are volatile, but they show that significant numbers of the public—many more Democrats than Republicans—have concerns over the national election process. Figure 1 shows the results of a National Election Studies time series question on views of the fairness of American elections.27 In 1996, about 9.6% of the public (7.5% of Democrats and 12% of Republicans) thought the manner of conducting the most recent presidential election was "somewhat unfair" or "very unfair." The number skyrocketed to 37% of the public (44% of Democrats and 25% of Republicans) in 2000 following the Florida debacle. By 2004, the number fell to a still worrisome 13.6% of the public holding strongly negative views of American election administration. The gap between the views of Democrats (21.5%) and Republicans (2.9%) remains quite large.


The fact that Republicans were victorious in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections might drive the large disparity between Democrats and Republicans.28 Consider voter attitudes toward the fairness of the Washington State gubernatorial election in 2004. After a series of recounts and court battles, a Democrat was declared the winner.29 In a January 2005 Elway Poll of Washington voters, 68% of Republicans thought the state election process was unfair, compared to 27% of Democrats and 46% of Independents.30 It is hard to escape the conclusion that views about the fairness of the process are driven, at least in part, by the outcome that recent elections have produced. If that is so, it should not be surprising to see large numbers of Republicans nationally indicating a lack of faith in the election process if the next close election features a Democrat squeaking by to gain the presidency.

On 9/27/2010 2:37 PM, Henry E. Brady wrote:

In a 2001 article, “Trust the People:  Political Party Coalitions and the 2000 Election” in Jack Rakove (editor), The Unfinished Election of 2000, I wrote the following:

 

            The 2000 National Election Studies continued to conduct interviews for nearly two months after election day.  Presciently, they added a question asking whether the election was fair.  From the very beginnings of the post-election interviewing, two-thirds of the Republicans thought that the election was fair, but Democrats and independents were in the middle, with somewhat less than half of them agreeing.  During the period when the Supreme Court returned the first decision to the Florida Supreme Count on December 3 to when they made their final judgment on December 12, Republicans became even more sure that the election was fair (80 percent agreeing with this judgment) and independents and Democrats became less sure, with only about 40 percent believing it was fair. [Footnote:  The post-election interviewing by the National Election Studies does not create a random sample for every day so the observed changes could be the result of the changing composition of the people interviewed.  I have checked this possibility by extensive internal analysis of the data and by considering other published polls.  The results reported in the text seem quite genuine. (My thanks to Richard Goulding for researching the other polls.)]  

 

It is not surprising that Democrats thought the result unfair and Republicans thought it fair, but the telling fact is that even independents thought the election was more unfair than fair.  In addition, the survey asked people to rate the Supreme Court on a ‘feeling thermometer’ from 0 to 100.  Again, around the first twelve days of December, people’s feelings toward the Supreme Court dropped sharply by about five points, a drop of 7.5 points among Democrats, a drop of 5.7 among independents, and an increase of 4.3 among Republicans.  It is hard to know whether this will have a lasting effect, but there is no question that people noticed that the Supreme Court intruded in the electoral process in a way that only partisan Republicans found acceptable.

 

Henry E. Brady

Goldman School of Public Policy

University of California Berkeley

 

From: election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu [mailto:election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu] On Behalf Of DAVID ADAMANY
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 1:12 PM
To: election-law@mailman.lls.edu
Subject: [EL] Public Response to Bush v. Gore

 

A member of the list has inquired about public response to the Court's decision in Bush v. Gore.   Professor Herb Kritzer, then of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was actually in the field with a poll at the time Bush v. Gore was decided.   His survey showed a 17.5% decline in public support for the Court among Democrats, a 13.1% increase in public support for the Court among Republicans, and an insignificant increase (3 percent) in support among independents.   So short-term approval of the Court overall did not change significantly in the immediate aftermath of Bush v. Gore, but the sources of support changed by party.   See, Kritzer, "The impact of Bush v. Gore on public perceptions and knowledge of the Supreme Court," 85 Judicature 32 (2001).   

 

However, the effects may not have been long-lasting.   A variety of more recent polls do not show any long-term decline in public approval or support for the Court.   The General Social Science Survey, conducted each two years by the University of Chicago, shows confidence levels in the Court have remained a couple of percentage points greater than confidence in Congress or the President over a very extended period of years.

 

Professor James Gibson of the Washington University in St. Louis, who sometimes posts to this site, is perhaps the leading thinker about public attitudes toward the Supreme Court among political scientists.   He may wish to add to the above.  He and his colleagues have shown that "diffuse [overall generalized] support" for the Court at four data points between 1987 and 2005 was marginally higher in 2001, after Bush v. Gore, than at any of the other three data points.  Gibson and Caldiera, Citizens, Courts and Confirmations 46 (2009).   

 

Jim may want to elaborate on these comments.

 

David

 

 

 

 

David Adamany

Laura Carnell Professor of Law

and Political Science, and

Chancellor

1810 Liacouras Walk, Ste 330

Temple University

Philadelphia, PA 19122

(215) 204-9278

 


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-- 
Rick Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
919 Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
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rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org



_______________________________________________
election-law mailing list
election-law@mailman.lls.edu
http://mailman.lls.edu/mailman/listinfo/election-law


-- 
Rick Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
919 Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org