I'm Elizabeth Lattery and I'm Tiffany Bates and welcome to SCOTUS 101 where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court, what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government.

This week we're talking about public confidence in the Supreme Court, upcoming arguments, and a database collecting all of the justices' private

notes.

So a few new polls have come out about the Supreme Court and how the public feels about the

court.

Gallup, as well as the Annanburg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and

also Marquette Law School in the last couple of weeks have all released new polls with some

interesting findings. So apparently the American people like the Supreme Court and think that

it's doing a pretty good job. So the Marquette study showed that 57% of the people surveyed

picked the Supreme Court as the branch of government that they trust the most, which kind of tracks with what I would expect.

Gallup found that 54% of people surveyed approve of the job of the Supreme Court.

So just over a majority, which I think is higher than the president or Congress, typically, they're in the 20s, right?

And then the Annanburg Center said that 68% of people trust the Supreme Court to operate in the best interests of the American people.

And 70% said that the court has the right amount of power.

Now, it'll be interesting to see if these same institutions have polls at the end of this term

if the numbers will change because, of course, this is a real blockbuster term with the court

hearing cases on abortion, gay rights, guns, immigration, health care, religion, you name it.

They've got it this term.

So it'll be interesting to see.

But at least for right now, America seems pretty happy with the Supreme Court.

But there is at least one person who's very upset that these polls express that. That's Dahlia Lithwick.

She has this new piece in Slate. No one knows how to get my blood boiling quite like her.

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