It could be individual justices, but we want to know your opinion of the Supreme Court. You can make your thoughts known on the phone, 202 5853880 for democrats, 2025853881 for republicans and independents. 202 5853882. On social media you can post your comments on twitter. We posted the question last night. About 800 responded so far. You can add your thoughts there. You can send an email, too. If you take a look at polls specifically asking about opinions about the Supreme Court gallop is posting one that talks about americans level of confidence. It started, again, if you believe polls, in 2012, they asked if you had a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court and in 2013, 30 said they had a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court. It reflects a negative 7 change in Public Opinion of the court, again, according to gallop. Several other polls reflect that. But for our first 45 minutes, we turn your attention to the Supreme Court. We want to get your opinion of the court and its dealings and its workings. Here are the numbers again. You can also make your thoughts known on twitter at cspan wj and send us an email if you want at journal at cspan. Org and if you want to post this on our facebook page. Well read a few as we go along in the morning, but facebook. Com cspan as well. One of the people or companies that do polls of this is the firm penn schoen berland. This is their survey of june of 2014, being timed with the end of Court Session for this year. Joining us on the phone to talk about the results, robert green, a principal there at the firm. Mr. Green, hello. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you sir . Host good. Before we go into the specifics, tells about the behindthescenes work as far as what you were looking for. Guest weve been interested in this subject for many years. Weve had the opportunity to poll on attitudes on cameras in the Supreme Court for five years now. Several times on behalf of cspan and weve expanded an analysis as part of our own Monthly National tracking studies. This latest survey, the one we conducted earlier, early this month, or, rather, excuse me, early in june 2 through 4 last month is sort of a continuation of that interest. Host so we talked about the gallop poll of people and their opinions on it. This is the question you asked. Generally speaking, what is your opinion of the overall effectiveness of the Supreme Court. Would you say and you went down categories of those who strongly approve the way the court does its job, 8 of respondents somewhat approve of the way the court does its job. 46 somewhat disapprove of the way the court does its job and 34 strongly disapprove the way the Supreme Court does its job, 12 , making a total approval rate of 54 and disapprove 46 . There are the numbers. Fill in the blanks. Guest let me fill in the first blank. Theres been a drop in the last few years of approval of the Supreme Court. Weve seen a 6point drop since 2012. That would in essence its now a 50 50 or very close to a 50 50 proposition among americans on what they approve of what the Supreme Courts doing. Similar to what you see in the gallop poll, we used a different measure than they did. They looked at whether you approve a great deal or quite a lot, so on and so forth, have confidence in the institution. Ours was, id have to say, a slightly softer scale. Were seeing the same decline they are. Theres approval in what the Supreme Court does is dropping. Host so numbers only tell us one thing and you only asked specific questions. I suppose theres no sense of why people responded the way they did or at least anecdotally you can perhaps give us some insight . Guest look, theres two big things going on out there. One is theres a very strong feeling that, you know, theres declining confidence in institutions government, noted in most of the stories. But a big factor that we see and this is what weve explored i suppose as much or more than any other polling firm is that theres a strong feeling that the Supreme Court should be more open and transparent. And thats a were seeing 90 plus numbers on that. What theyre not seeing is what they like to see which is how the Supreme Court does its business. They think theres too little coverage typically. This is particularly true weve learned in past polls when theres been cases such as samesex marriage. This is the fact, the feeling, theres simply not enough coverage is is a strong feeling among the public and that theyre not open and transparent. Theyre not sharing about what theyre up to. Thats a dominant feeling. Host too little coverage according to those responding. 49 . You had mentioned that. 45 saying just the right amount of coverage and only 5 saying theres too much coverage. Guest thats correct. What they dont like is they tend to learn heres how they learn about the Supreme Court and their activities and this is its basically either how the media interprets it. Ive seen, as im sure you have, so many stories in just the last few days suggesting that its all republicans and democrats and thats in essence the only thats the filter through which the public perceives whats going on on the Supreme Court. No consideration about how they might be different than, if you would, more partisan parts of the government like the congress. They are not seeing literally, theyre not hearing anything about the Supreme Court except as filtered through the media and to a lesser degree the congress and the president. Host one of the things you do discuss or at least poll on is Television Coverage of oral arguments. With 69 agreeing that there should be televised coverage. 31 disagreeing. And then it breaks down by category. Why do you go down this road . Why do you ask this question . Guest we asked the question because its its i mean, its a fundamental issue now, which is that in a sense, the kocourt you know, by not opening up cameras in the courtroom, by not making it possible for people to watch the proceedings, in a sense, its almost pretending the coverage doesnt exist. In essence, coverage does exist. Its going to be what the Supreme Court does is enormously important and if its only coming through the filters, you know, as defined by others, as i said, the media, i mean, what theyre doing the reason we asked this question, one, its something thats important to keep a measure on and we get very strong numbers in support of Television Coverage. Its gone up 8 points in the last few years. But i think the Bigger Picture thing that i that in a sense your question is getting at is the Supreme Court is outsourcing control over their reputation. And so the role of the court and what the justices do is left entirely in the hands of other bodies. And thats thats not thats not useful for them. The cameras are really the only trustworthy witness there is where the justices could demonstrate that they take their job seriously, that theyre not acting in a partisan way or in a gridlocked way like we see so much with congress. Host robert green on the phone from penn schoen berland, talking about this poll, hes a principal at the firm. If people want to see the poll itself, is it Available Online . Guest yes, well make sure its in everyones hands. Host mr. Green, thank you. Gue guest thank you. Host youve seen the questions and the gallop poll information. We turn to you for your opinion about the Supreme Court. The phone lines for you to call. It all starts with the 202 area code. Mark is up first from philadelphia on our democrats line. Thank you for waiting, mark. You are up first. Go ahead on your thoughts and your opinion of the Supreme Court. Caller yes, good morning. All i have to say to you is when you think the court can get, they get even lower. Theres the hobby lobby decision and little known about the union dues. Is this 2014 or 1894 . This court is rolling back all the games made in the 20th century with the progressive year. With Citizens United and now hobby lobby, does anyone know that the Koch Brothers corporation with 60,000 employees is closely held . I mean, i cannot believe this. Host bobby from georgia, on a republican line, go ahead, please. Caller yes. Id like to know why the Supreme Court bashing . The hobby lobby case is just one of many decisions, and the bottom line is i think that the media itself, the left wing bias of the media, right now youre talking about the Supreme Court because of that case and in my opinion it should have been a 72 decision, barring the two people that obama put on there, and i want to know, like i was looking at msnbc a few minutes ago and they had a poll and polls are just polls. They had a poll on there that said 30 of the people think obama is the worst president since world war ii. Polls are polls. May i make one more statement before i finish . Guest go ahead. Caller i remember in 2008 you had Christopher Hayes and when it looks like obama was going to get elected, you two were high 5ing. Host i know that didnt take place. Besides the recent rulings the court made, whats your general opinion of the court . Caller my general opinion is theyre doing the best they can. Its general knowledge that its got to slant towards conservatives today and kennedy in the middle, he goes either other way. Theres a lot of liberals like to say about this time, elections matter. Americas tired of all this liberalism and stuff like that. If you look at the hobby lobby case, its basically this. They do allow 16 other contraceptives and everything but everybody is talking about it like theyre trying to deny womens rights. Host several of the papers this morning including a Washington Post appears in the denver post. It says the number of rulings without dissent skyrocketed to rates not seen since the 1940s. The courts decisions of closely divided decisions is a low. The decisions announced monday shows a stark decision appear in the court. Theres a graph that shows you the cases and their breakdown. Well show you that in a little bit. Democrats line is up next. This is debra. Youre on, go ahead. Caller okay. Dont cut me off because i have two comments. The first one is they need to open up the court. People need to be able to see whats going on. Now, my second comment is im not an attorney, im not college educated, so my wording might not be too articulate. I believe that if anyone dies or anyone has any harm from their decisions, i do not know why they cannot be sued civilly. Their opinions, they know, affect the lives of people. The people of the lives they affect should be able to hold them accountable for it. One person dies from the buffer zone being gone, i think somebody should sue them. Host overall, debra, what kind of opinion do you hold of the court . Caller i think they suck. Host allen is up next. Hamilton virginia, independent line. Caller yeah, i think if you look a little bit beyond the surface, the whole notion of the Supreme Court deciding a case between the federal government and the state is kind of akin to airing into contractual relationships with you and if theres a discrepancy, nine of your cousins are going to decide the case. Host okay. The breakdown of Court Proceedings for this term, this is a done in the washington times. Theres a total number of oral arguments for 2013 and 2014, 73. The number of unanimous decisions, 48, which makes it 65. 7 . The notable unanimous decisions including the search warrant needed for cell phones, massachusetts abortion buffer zone that was struck down, the curbing of the president s deployment powers and stricter standards for Software Patent applications. Bernie, howard beach new york. Go ahead, please. Republican line. Caller yeah, i believe the Supreme Court, as it was designed, is doing what its supposed to do. Theres congeniality among the nine justices as opposed to the problem with the congress. They cant sit down and talk to each other without calling each other a nazi or communist or a pervert. Most of the people who and i do listen to the broadcasts of the discussions, the oral arguments i dont understand i dont understand all the intricacies of how these people make the decisions, but im not a lawyer and im not a philosopher. I depend upon other people who are smarter than me to recommend these people and i have faith that the government and the constitution has been designed for nine people together who have certain abilities to do a job. It doesnt come out black or white. But im willing to accept whatever they whatever they agree to as opposed to some of the other countries that dont have a Supreme Court like this. Thank you. Host the New York Times takes a look at the effect of chief Justice John Roberts in the court, that the Roberts Court remains skeptical of Campaign Finance regulations and raise conscious decisionmaking by the government it solicits of corporate rights and its efforts to curb union power. Host more analysis pieces in the papers this morning. Were asking your opinion of the court. Massachusetts up next, this is fran. Democrats line. Hello. Caller yes, good morning. Anybody that doesnt believe that the Supreme Court is biased, theyve got to be asleep at the switch. Youve got alito, scalia, and thomas regularly getting paid to give speeches to conservatives groups and your first guest on this morning, it felt that there wasnt any biased in the Supreme Court, hes the reason my grandmother used to say to me i would say, no, no, friend, liar, liar. I mean, its just unbelievable that a lawyer would get on there and say that the Supreme Court is not biased. Look at the corporations of people. Look at the fact that they wanted 252 buffer zones around themselves and they wont allow a 5foot buffer zone around a woman who has to go in, through a herd of screaming, swearing, obnoxious people to go in an abortion because she cant afford another child. Host from new york, this is john, independent line. Caller ive been watching cspan for a while. I know the Supreme Court has passed bills that were proobamacare in the past and i dont recall ever hearing a poll taken and i understand why the people are upset now because of this latest bill that they passed but as far as cameras go, they have cameras in congress and it hasnt had a good effect as far as their rating goes. If they introduce cameras into the Supreme Court, i think it would be interesting but i dont know if it would be beneficial for the American People and once they introduce that into the judicial system, will there be calls to have cameras introduced into the executive branch for nonconfidential proceedings . Host do you think if you put cameras in the courts that the process of the court making this process and the hearings that they hold, do you think that would be of interest to viewers or do you think it would change because there would be a camera there . Caller when youre on camera, you react a lot differently. They take these little film clips and they edit them and present them to the American People and its very easy to create different impressions and to figure your political needs. So i think that would be a detriment. Just personally, im not 100 sure, but i think it could be a detriment. Host Washington Post writes the average male white house employee earns 88,600 while the average female makes less than 13 . Host if you go to the Washington Post, they show the salaries that are made. Host you can find out more in the Washington Post. Bob, what is your opinion of the Supreme Court. Caller hi, hows it going . Host fine, thank you. Go ahead. Caller i just have a few simple questions. I know in the smaller Court Systems a lot of it seems to be a money game where they shovel people in and out of the courts. Just to make a profit. I dont see why it wouldnt be that way in a larger court system. I dont know who is behind lobbying judges or anything like that. But i do know it has been going on historically, you know, for a very long time, from the mafia and businesses and corporations and whatnot. My next comment is rather a question of why it takes the Supreme Court to enact civil rights for the people . Host they make the decisions and uphold them or at least make decisions so we can let other viewers answer your question if youd like. Vernon in new york, republican line. Caller i just caught your topic this morning and see youre asking whether or not they should have cameras in the Supreme Court. Youve been talking about that for years. I want the audience to know that ever since 1955 there have been audio recordings of the oral arguments available and easy to get. You just go to Supreme Court. Gov and its not updated apparently as it happens. I think you can get it right the next day. I might be wrong about that. Host w