Not only did the amount of activity increase; the nature of the polling changed as well. Rather than asking for straightforward responses ("Do you favor or oppose X or haven't you heard enough to say?"), the pollsters began to present arguments that might be used for or against a nominee--and many of them seemed to go to issues that were far beyond the nominee's qualifications. Here's one question asked by a leading pollster about Douglas Ginsburg's wife:

As you may know, [Supreme Court nominee Douglas] Ginsburg's wife, a medical doctor, performed a few legal abortions early in her career. Do you think the fact that Ginsburg's wife performed a few legal abortions is enough of a reason by itself to keep him off the Supreme Court or not?

The prominent polling firm Martilla & Kiley conducted a survey in August 1987, commissioned by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and sponsored by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which began by posing a few questions about people's views of the Court. It then asked whether people had heard anything about President Reagan's recent nomination of Judge Robert Bork to fill the vacancy created on the Supreme Court by the retirement of Justice Lewis Powell. Fifty-nine percent had not heard or read anything about Bork, while 41 percent had.

Lack of information notwithstanding, the surveyors then proceeded to "describe" positions Bork had taken and asked whether hearing the information would make the respondent less or more inclined to approve of Bork. "Bork is against the one-person, one-vote principle established by the Supreme Court twenty years ago" gives a flavor of the kinds of questions asked in the poll. People for the American Way conducted its own surveys on the acceptability of Bork. These advocacy polls became weapons in the confirmation battles. Some of the questions had the flavor of push polls.

In October 1987, Louis Harris got into a tangle with, of all people, economist Milton Friedman, who (along with Gerhard Casper) wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal that put some of Harris's questions about Bork under their microscope and suggested alternate wording that the authors felt would have produced different results. Harris responded that Friedman and Casper had not reported the full results of the poll, and defended the practice of asking "projective" negative and positive questions about a nominee.

Given the change in the nature of the polling on nominees, it's not surprising that about four hundred questions were asked about Clarence Thomas's nomination only a few years later, in 1991. The questions in the public domain may represent only a fraction of the pollsters' work. People familiar with that battle say both sides conducted surveys referring to arguments being made about the nominee. Only a small number of the questions at the Roper Center asked people whether they supported or opposed Thomas's confirmation. Most of the others explored aspects of his personality and temperament and opinions and, of course, the allegations about sexual harassment made by Anita Hill to the Judiciary Committee.

It's too early to know how many questions will be asked about Judge Roberts or what the tenor of those questions will be. A new poll from the Annenberg Public Policy Center shows that more than eight in ten of those surveyed believe that the process of confirming judges has become more politicized than in the past. The polls clearly reflect that change. Let us hope that they do not contribute further to it.

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