The Political Fallout of Taking a Stand: The President, Congress, and the Schiavo Case

Federal government involvement in the case of terminally ill Terri Schiavo provides an interesting opportunity to explore the potential impact of specific institutional actions on public approval of those institutions. We analyze national survey data from the period of federal intervention and a poll conducted several months later. Our analyses, which account for time and exposure to political news, suggest that presidential and congressional actions in the case were associated with a decline in approval for the president and congressional leaders. Thus, the president and Congress can pay a political price when they take high-profile actions a significant majority of the public opposes. ********** In American politics, many policy actions by Congress and the president do not receive a high degree of public attention. As such, assessment of public approval ratings of these institutions often takes the form of time-series analyses which explore the influence of broad trends, such as economic conditions (Kimball 2005; Rudolph 2002), or dramatic events, such as the start of a military conflict (Clarke et al. 2004; Rosenblatt 1998). But each year, even some policy decisions receive widespread attention. In one recent example, the federal government attempted to intervene in a dispute between members of a Florida family--the case of maintaining life support for Terri Schiavo. Such a high-profile case allows an opportunity for researchers to investigate the impact of specific policy actions on public approval ratings of political institutions using individual-level data. The death of Terri Schiavo on March 31, 2005, ended nearly seven years of bitter private and public battles over her care. Throughout most of that time, the battle had been waged in the Florida legislature and judicial system, but during the period from January 24, 2005, until Schiavo's death, all three branches of the federal government became involved in the debate over prolonging her life. Throughout March 2005, media coverage of the case was intense, and government officials played a highly visible role in the public drama (Cerminara 2006; Edwards 2007, 244; Kohut 2005). Nevertheless, the American public was opposed to federal government intervention in the Schiavo case, and broader trends in public opinion suggest that Americans prefer that the government refrain from intervening in end-of-life issues and leave the decision to families in consultation with doctors (Benson 1999; Pew Research Center for the People and the Press 2005, 2006). In fact, even a majority of those who self-described themselves as conservatives (68 percent) and white evangelicals (69 percent) disapproved of federal government intervention in the Schiavo case months after the salience of the issue had declined dramatically (Jacobson 2007, 220-21; Pew 2005). Given this context, our research explores the impact of federal government intervention on public opinion in a case where the public clearly disapproved of intervention. Our goal is to determine whether approval of congressional leaders and the president declined as a result of their specific actions in the case. We begin with an overview of theoretical perspectives that seek to explain institutional approval ratings. We then shift our attention to a detailed examination of the Schiavo case. Our discussion makes it clear that the Schiavo case was highly salient to the public and that public opinion strongly favored patient/family resolution of end-of-life issues. Nevertheless, in something of a media circus, Congress and the president intervened in the case. Based on the theoretical overview and details of the Schiavo case, we move to examining individual-level approval ratings of congressional leaders and the president, employing national survey data collected during the key days in which Congress and the president were intervening in the case. Based on the way we are able to structure the survey data, our analysis suggests that federal government intervention in the case contributed to a decline in public approval of the president and congressional Republican leaders and, to a lesser extent, approval of congressional Democratic leaders. …