We argue that understanding how public opinion may affect court decisions depends crucially on the Warren Court era (1953-1969). The Warren Court was historically liberal at a time when overall public opinion was also trending liberal. As a result, court decisions and public opinion were pretty strongly correlated during these years.
But if you set aside the Warren Court era, the picture changes. To show this, we drew on a measure of public opinion created by political scientist James Stimson. This measure combines survey questions about a wide range of topics into a single measure of the relative liberalism or conservatism of the American public. Higher values on this measure indicate a relatively more liberal public. Obviously, public opinion is more complex than this single measure, but it nicely captures the overall ideological “mood” of the country.
