In the court of public opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court isn’t faring too well.

Approval numbers for the Court have hit a half-century low, according to poll released this week by the Pew Research Center. The survey shows that only 52 percent of Americans rate the Court favorably, a drop from 58 percent in 2010.

At the same time, 29 percent rate the Court unfavorably, a jump from 25 percent in 2010.

Contrast 1994, when 80 percent of the public rated the Court favorably, and only 16 percent had a negative view.

The Court’s dwindling popularity is not a partisan issue, according to the poll: 56 percent of Republicans, and 52 percent of both Democrats and independents gave the Court a favorable rating.

On the issue of the health care law specifically, the public is deeply divided: 41 percent of those surveyed said they approve of it, while 49 percent disapprove.

But within those camps, views of the Court were similar. Among the health care law’s supporters, 52 percent have a favorable view of the Supreme Court, while 34 percent view it unfavorably. Among the law’s opponents, 55 percent rate the Court favorably, and 28 percent gave an unfavorable vote.

As President Barack Obama prepares to formally launch his reelection campaign and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney continues to stump, expect the Supreme Court to be a major campaign issue.

Two very high profile cases – the challenge to the federal health care law and the challenge to the Arizona immigration law authorizing local and state police with immigration enforcement powers – will be decided before the election, reminding voters of how important the Court is. And equally headline-grabbing cases – dealing with affirmative action in colleges and perhaps California’s same-sex marriage ban and the Defense of Marriage Act – lie on the horizon for the justices to take up next term.

All this comes at a time when the Court is nearly equally divided ideologically. And four of the nine justices are over the age of 70: Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg (79), Antonin Scalia (76), Anthony Kennedy (75), and Steven Breyer (73).

This week Obama indicated that he is fully aware of the major role the Court will play in the campaign.

“There are going to be some Supreme Court appointments probably if you look actuarially for the next president,” Obama said at a fundraiser with former President Clinton, according to the Washington Examiner. “There’s so much at stake here.”

Romney has already spoken about the importance of Supreme Court appointment power, and pledged to nominate judges with ideologies in line with the Court’s most conservative jurists.

(Romney photo by Gage Skidmore)

A Supreme Court ruling upholding the Arizona immigration law that authorizes police to check the immigration status of detained individuals could spur other state legislators to quickly move to adopt similar measures, state lawmakers say.

So far five states have enacted immigration measures like Arizona’s, but similar bills have been introduced in 36 states. State legislators and legal analyst told the AP that a Supreme Court ruling in Arizona’s favor would spur a new push to get those laws passed.

“There will be an enormous amount of energy spent in next few months examining the full range of possibilities,” Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform told the AP.

Lawmakers from about a dozen states told the AP that they stand at the ready to press forward should the Supreme Court rule that such measures are not preempted by the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.

As the most junior associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, it is Justice Elena Kagan’s duty to do things such as answer the door, take notes and serve coffee when the justices hold their private conferences.

But perhaps one of the other justices will see to it that there is birthday cake to go with that coffee when the justices conference this morning. On Saturday, Kagan celebrates her 52^nd birthday.

He’s made cracks about bad dictionaries, deadpanned about deporting babies to China, and quipped that a justice’s job could at times violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

By making the audience and other justices of the Supreme Court laugh during oral arguments more than five dozen times, Justice Antonin G. Scalia sailed to an easy victory as this term’s Funniest Justice. Since DC Dicta began keeping count, Scalia is undefeated.

So the real race was for second place. And though Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. made a real contest of it, it was Justice Stephen G. Breyer who walked away with the silver this term, with Roberts coming in third.

According to the laugh count, as noted in the Court’s official transcripts, every justice earned at least one laugh this term except Justice Clarence Thomas, who hasn’t made a comment during oral arguments – humorous or otherwise – since Feb. 22, 2006. Let’s just hope that when he does speak, we’ll get a chuckle out of it.

Here is the final tally:

Justice Antonin Scalia: 63

Justice Stephen Breyer: 47

Chief Justice John G. Roberts: 26

Justice Anthony Kennedy: 11

Justice Elena Kagan: 7

Justice Samuel Alito: 5

Justice Sonia Sotomayor: 2

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 1

Justice Clarence Thomas: 0

Gov. Jan Brewer and attorney Paul Clement, far right, leaving the Supreme Court Wednesday after oral arguments in Arizona v. U.S. (Photo: Kimberly Atkins, Lawyers USA)

There is bad news and good news for the Obama administration as it seeks to have Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law SB 1070 struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The bad news: four out of the eight justices who heard the case today seemed to side squarely on the side of Arizona officials who say the state statute does not conflict with federal immigration law. (Justice Elena Kagan recused herself, likely because she was involved in the challenge while she was Obama’s solicitor general).

If, as it seemed, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and presumably Clarence Thomas (Thomas does not speak during oral arguments, but he is a vocal opponent of the doctrine of implied preemption) are inclined to rule in favor of the state, the best the federal government can do in its challenge is tie – assuming noted swing voter Justice Anthony M. Kennedy votes in the administration’s favor.

But the good news is that a tie would be a win in this case. If the Court splits, the case goes back to the 9^th Circuit, which has already given a strong indication that it would strike down the law when it upheld a preliminary injunction preventing the law from going into effect.

Much more on the arguments later on Lawyers USA online.

The Supreme Court is set to end its oral argument season with a bang this morning, as it hears the challenge to Arizona’s immigration law which authorizes police officers to check the status of any detained individual the officer suspects may be an illegal immigrant.

The law is being challenged by the Obama administration, which argues that federal immigration law preempts state measures such as Arizona’s SB 1070. But state officials say they have the right to enact state immigration laws, particularly where – as they claim here – federal law is ineffective.

Stay tuned to Lawyers USA online and this blog this afternoon for updates on the arguments.

New Yorkers who live in affordable apartments – some of which have been handed down within families for years – can rest easy today. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a case challenging the city’s rent control laws.

The Court gave a hint that it could take up the challenge last month when it asked the city as state to respond to the petition by a landlord of an Upper West Side rental property. The owner claimed that city laws preventing him from increasing the rent on a tenant who has resided in an apartment since the 1970s amounts to an unconstitutional taking by the government. The rent is currently capped at a rate lower than the mortgage the tenant pays on a vacation home in the Hamptons.

But the justices took a pass, declining certiorari without comment Monday.

Is GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney already assembling a list of Supreme Court nominee prospects?

We don’ know. But lawyers and conservatives are tossing around names of people they’d like to see the former Massachusetts governor consider should he be elected president in November – and should a vacancy arise on the bench, according to Reuters’ David Ingram.

At the top of conservatives’ wish list is former Solicitor General Paul Clement, now a partner at Bancroft where he is handling blockbuster cases such as the challenge to the health care law and GOP lawmakers’ defense of the Defense of Marriage Act.

“He’s the type of person who fits the mold that the governor has pledged to look for,” said Mary Ann Glendon, a co-chairwoman of Romney’s Justice Advisory Committee, who stressed that “it’s much too soon to speculate about names.”

Other names on the GOP’s reported dream list are D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh, 7^th Circuit judge Diane Sykes, 8^th Circuit Judge Steven Colloton, 10^th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch, and 6^th Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton – though Sutton famously voted to uphold the federal health care law, which Romney opposes.

As the justices of the Supreme Court gather to conference this morning, perhaps they will take a moment to wish their former colleague a happy birthday.

Today retired Justice John Paul Stevens turns 92.

By the way, he is still not the longest-living justice. That honor goes to Justice Stanley Forman Reed, who lived to age 95.