Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation Poll: Majority think Supreme Court has become more partisan

With the Supreme Court's ruling on the constitutionality of the 2010 healthcare reform bill looming'and with many different outcomes possible'we decided to ask voters how they feel about the court itself:

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 6/14-17. Registered voters. MoE ±3.1% (no trendlines):

Q: Since 2000 do you think the Supreme Court has become more partisan, less partisan, or stayed about the same?

More partisan: 56
Less partisan: 9
About the same: 31
Not sure: 4

The year 2000, of course, at the time set a new high-water mark for naked partisanship on the part of the Supreme Court, with its infamous "one-time-use-only" ruling in Bush v. Gore. Yet since then, most Americans feel the court has only become even more partisan. Unsurprisingly, Democrats are most apt to feel this way, with 62% saying that the SCOTUS has grown more partisan. Numbers among independents are almost identical, something we rarely see: 60% feel the same way. Meanwhile, only 48% of Republicans agree. By the same token, only 51% of self-described conservatives pull the "more partisan" lever while 69% of liberals do.

These crosstabs suggest that Americans are indeed aware of the court's rightward drift over the past decade. And the topline numbers indicate that quite a lot of voters are prepared to regard any decision the court makes on healthcare reform as being motivated at least in part by partisan concerns, rather than what justice demands.

P.S. As always, our approval and favorability numbers can be found on our weekly trends page.