RAPID: Racial Attitudes and the 2009 Confirmation Hearings on Sonia Sotomayor

本项目调查2009年最高法院提名人索尼娅·m·索托马约尔的确认听证会如何影响政治和种族态度。这些信息将通过听证会前和听证会后对1100名成年公民以及500名黑人和500名西班牙裔人进行抽样调查来收集。该项目具体审查了对种族和少数民族群体的政治和种族态度，以及听证会前后种族和少数民族群体的政治和种族态度。因此，本研究利用索托马约尔听证会来调查对法律和法院的潜在态度，以及听证会是否产生了对法院及其裁决、联邦制、公民权利和自由以及种族关系的特别关注。该项目衡量了对被提名人和确认听证会的评价、精选的法院判决、国会议员和总统、对种族和民族群体、性别和法院的态度以及对种族怨恨的看法。该设计包括对2008年合作国会选举研究小组成员的重新访谈。这些特征使我们能够在提名前、提名后但在参议院听证会前和参议院听证会后对候选人的态度进行评估。最后，该项目有助于与其他调查的结果进行比较。该项目将通过推进关于政治和种族态度之间的相互作用和可塑性的新发现，产生广泛的影响。特别是，结果将说明最高法院的确认听证会如何以及为什么影响对种族和民族群体的态度以及种族和民族对政治制度的态度。该项目将产生横向和纵向数据，使学者能够比较白人、黑人和西班牙裔的态度。

This project investigates how the 2009 confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominee Sonia M. Sotomayor might affect political and racial attitudes. This information will be collected through a pre- and post-hearing national survey of 1100 adult citizens along with an oversample of 500 blacks and 500 Hispanics. The project specifically examines political and racial attitudes toward racial and ethnic minority groups as well as political and racial attitudes of racial and ethnic minority groups before and after the hearings. This study thus uses the Sotomayor hearings to investigate dormant attitudes toward law and the courts and whether the hearings generated particular concerns about the Court and its decisions, federalism, civil rights and liberties, and race relations. The project measures evaluations of the nominee and the confirmation hearings, select Court decisions, members of Congress and the President, and attitudes toward racial and ethnic groups, gender, and the Court as well as perceptions of racial resentment. The design includes a re-interview of panelists from the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. These features enable an assessment of attitudes before the nomination, after the nomination but before Senate hearings, and after the Senate hearings. Finally, the project facilitates comparisons with findings from other surveys.The project will have broad impacts by advancing new discovery about the interactions among and malleability of political and racial attitudes. In particular, results will illustrate how and why Supreme Court confirmation hearings affect both attitudes about racial and ethnic groups and attitudes of racial and ethnic groups toward the political system. The project will yield cross-sectional and longitudinal data that will enable scholars to compare the attitudes of whites, blacks, and Hispanics.