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News :: Miscellaneous |
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How are America's Constitutional Rights Faring After 225 Years? |
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by Jeff Barge
(No verified email address)
Phone: (212) 576-8883 |
05 Jul 2001
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Fourth of July Survey: How are America's Constitutional Rights Faring 225 Years After the Founding of a Nation?
Not So Well, Say Many Americans
Confidence in equal justice climbs 17 points. But equal access to public office, federal courts still get a flunking grade. And Americans have continuing doubts about the past election. |
NEW YORK - July 3 - Exactly 225 years after the United States was founded, many Americans are giving the country a failing grade when it comes to guarding the Constitutional rights the country was created to protect, according to a survey released for the Fourth of July holiday today.
The most endangered right? The right to run for elected office, which only 41% of Americans feel is open equally to rich and poor.
Also receiving a flunking grade is the right of equal access to the federal courts, which only 45% of Americans surveyed feel is open to rich and poor equally.
The statistics are part of the Second Annual Fourth of July Survey commissioned by New York public relations consultant Jeff Barge. The telephone survey of 1,000 households was conducted with the assistance of Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton, N.J. and has a margin of error of 3%.
\"For the second year in a row, Americans have given two of the nation\'s Constitutional rights a failing grade,\" said Mr. Barge. \"This should be a cause of some concern.\"
But the news is not all gloomy. According to survey, the country has been more successful in guaranteeing other Constitutional rights. Scoring highest is freedom of religion, which 91% feel is guaranteed equally to rich and poor.
And despite the Florida voting fiasco last fall, 85% of Americans feel that the right to vote is equally available to rich and poor – despite a controversial study by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights saying that black voters in Florida were 10 times more likely to have their ballots rejected than white voters.
Additionally, 69% of those surveyed feel that gun ownership is equally available to rich and poor; and 63% of Americans feel that the right to free speech is equally available to rich and poor.
Among other surprising results of the Second Annual Fourth of July Survey:
--74% of Americans say that it is important for Congress to pass some form of campaign finance reform in order to protect democracy.
--68% of Americans say that any kid in the country should be allowed to join the Boy Scouts, whether he is straight or gay.
--39% of Americans believe George Bush would not now be president if minority votes in Florida had been accurately counted in last November\'s presidential election -- with 70% of black Americans feeling that way.
According to the survey, Americans\' confidence in equal justice is the only right that has shown an increase in confidence in the past year, tacking on a 17-point increase from last year\'s dismal showing that only 28% of Americans felt rich and poor had equal access to justice.
Last year\'s confidence level may have been dragged down by the spring release of \"And Justice for Some,\" funded by several of the nation\'s leading foundations. That study says black youths convicted of drug offenses are 48 times more likely to be sentenced to juvenile prison than white youths. Overall, black youths with no record are six times as likely as whites to be imprisoned.
\"If President Bush wants to win the black vote in his re-election campaign, he might consider taking steps to stop discrimination against blacks in America\'s courts,\" says Mr Barge. \"The Democrats have left themselves wide open on this issue.\"
Although that study did not list the names of the individual judges responsible for the wide disparity in sentencing, in this year\'s survey 72% of those polled say their names should be made public by the Justice Dept.
Media reports that members of the Supreme Court discriminate against blacks and other minorities in making personal hiring decisions for judicial clerkships may also be contributing to a low score for the federal judicial system; 35% of those surveyed this year said that they were aware of media coverage of this Supreme Court discrimination. A series of articles in USA Today and other newspapers have noted that only 2% of Supreme Court clerks appointed by the present group of justices were black and only 1% Hispanic. Those articles singled out Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Souter, Scalia and Kennedy as four judges who have never hired a black clerk since being appointed to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Rehnquist has been on the Supreme Court for 29 years, since being appointed by Nixon in 1972; Justice Scalia has been on the Court for 14 years.
Despite the rise in overall confidence in equal justice, Americans were still skeptical about the fairness of the court system, with half of all Americans (50%) saying the courts are \"at least occasionally biased\" against the poor and minorities, and 37% saying they are \"often\" biased.
And overall, the nation was mixed as to whether Congress was doing a good job of protecting their Constitutional rights, with 78% saying Congress \"does a good job\" protecting freedom of religion; 71% saying it does a good job protecting voting rights; 62% saying it does a good job of protecting free speech; and 61% saying it does a good job of protecting access to guns.
But only 52% say Congress does a good job of protecting equal access of rich and poor to the courts; and just 41% say Congress does a good job of protecting equal access of rich and poor to elected office. |
See also:
http://www.commondreams.org/news2001/0703-08.htm
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