Most Americans don’t know which parties control the House, Senate: poll

For all the attention given to this year’s midterm elections, 35 percent of Americans can’t name one of the three branches of government and most don’t know which parties control the U.S. House and Senate.

And a fifth of Americans say a 5-4 Supreme Court decision is sent back to Congress for reconsideration.

Those are results from a University of Pennsylvania poll released this week for Constitution Day, Sept. 17.

In the survey of 1,416 adults by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, about the same number of adults (36 percent) could name all three branches of the U.S. government as the number who could not name a single one (35 percent).

Thirty-eight percent said they knew Republicans are in the majority in the House of Representatives, but 17 percent said the Democrats were and 44 percent said they did not know. Thirty-eight percent correctly said Democrats control the U.S. Senate, 20 percent said Republicans and 42 percent said they did not know.

And 27 percent know it takes a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to override a presidential veto.

“Although surveys reflect disapproval of the way Congress, the President and the Supreme Court are conducting their affairs, the Annenberg survey demonstrates that many know surprisingly little about these branches of government,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). “This survey offers dramatic evidence of the need for more and better civics education.”

The APPC and other nonpartisan groups like the Library of Congress and National Archives are launching the Civics Renewal Network, a free online resource for teachers, in an effort to address the issue.