Much has been made of late about the hyper-partisan political environment in America. On Tuesday,
Sen. Evan Bayh explained his surprising recent decision to leave the Senate by lamenting a "dysfunctional"
political system riddled with "brain-dead partisanship." It seems you'd be hard-pressed to get Republicans and Democrats inside and outside of Washington to agree on
anything these days, that if one party publicly stated its intention to add a "puppies are adorable" declaration to its platform, that the other party would immediately launch a series of anti-puppy advertisements.
But it appears that one issue does unite Americans across the political spectrum.
As noted by
the Post's Dan Eggen, the poll's findings show "remarkably strong agreement" across the board, with roughly 80% of Americans saying that they're against the Court's 5-4 decision. Even more remarkable may be that opposition by Republicans, Democrats, and
Independents were all near the same 80% opposition range. Specifically, 85% of Democrats, 81% of Independents, and 76% of Republicans opposed it. In short,
"everyone hates" the ruling.
The poll's findings could enhance the possibility of getting a broad range of support behind
a movement in Congress to pass legislation that would offset the Court's decision. Of those polled, 72% said they supported congressional action to reverse its effects.
Sen. Charles Schumer, who's leading the reform effort in the Senate,
told the Postthat he hoped to get "strong and quick bi-partisan support" behind a bill that "passes constitutional muster but will still effectively limit the influence of special interests."
The findings of the poll are a bit surprising considering the fact that
the case split the Supreme Court, with the five conservative justices in favor and the four more liberal justices against it. The decision was almost
universally hailed by Republicans in Washington, who saw it as a victory for the free speech provided for under the
Constitution, while President Obama and prominent Democrats in Washington almost
universally derided it as a dark day for American democracy.
However,
Sen. John McCain, one of the original sponsors of the
campaign finance law struck down by Court's decision and one of its few prominent Republican opponents, may have been prophetic when he predicted Americans would turn against the Court. McCain
told CBS's "Face the Nation" that there would be a "backlash" once awareness grew about "the amounts of union and corporate money that's going to go into
political campaigns."
Perhaps the new poll numbers show that McCain might have been onto something.
-- Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News blog
