The Supreme Court started a new session earlier this month with newly confirmed Justice Sonia Sotomayor and a full docket of cases ranging from gun control to sentencing for juvenile offenders.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 43% of voters say the court is doing a good or excellent job, down five points from a recent high of 48% in July.

Only 14% of voters say the Supreme Court is doing a poor job, up two points from July.

That month, an overwhelming majority of voters (80%) said they were closely following news stories about President Obama’s nomination of Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

This may help explain why support for the court reached its highest level measured in two years.

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Seventy percent (70%) of voters think the Supreme Court should base its decisions on what is written in the U.S. Constitution, but just 44% say that's what primarily guides the court in its decision-making. The latter finding is down eight points from the previous survey.

Twenty-five percent (25%) say the court should be guided by fairness and justice. Twenty-nine percent (29%) think that's how the court acts in reality.

Sotomayor brings to the court political views akin to the justice she replaced, David Souter, which means its ideological balance is not likely to change. But 36% now say the high court is too liberal, while just 20% feel it is too conservative. These findings are higher than the previous survey in August.

Thirty-five percent (35%) say the political views of the Supreme Court are just about right, down six points from that time.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of Republicans believe the court is too liberal, compared to 33% of Democrats.

Most voters (55%) think that the Supreme Court justices have their own political agenda, a finding that has remained fairly consistent since the beginning of the year. Twenty-nine percent (29%) say the justices generally remain impartial. Fifteen-percent (15%) are not sure.

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