Poll: Supreme Court approval rating high

PRINCETON, N.J., Sept. 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court enjoys a near-decade high job approval rating among Americans, results of a Gallup Poll released Wednesday indicate.

Sixty-one percent of respondents approve of the job the nation's high court is doing while 28 percent disapprove, the results showed.

The approval rating is the most positive the high court has received in the last 10 years, the Princeton, N.J., polling agency said. A year ago, the public's approval rating of the court was 50 percent, while 39 percent disapproved.

The court, with recently sworn-in Justice Sonia Sotomayor seated, got a jump start on its fall term Wednesday by hearing a free speech case involving corporate campaign spending.

Also up -- from 43 percent in September 2008 to 50 percent this year -- is the percentage of respondents who said they think the court is "about right" ideologically, Gallup said.

Gallup said 19 percent of respondents said they thought the court was too conservative, while 28 percent said they thought it was too liberal.

Results are based on nationwide telephone interviews with 1,026 adults conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 2. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.