In an April 6-9 CBS News poll, only 15 percent of respondents said that the current Congress is accomplishing more than it usually does during a two-year period, compared to 67 percent who said it was accomplishing less.

Resident Fellow Karlyn Bowman

Across the board, majorities of respondents came to the same conclusion. Among self-identified Republicans, 58 percent said that Congress was accomplishing less, as did 73 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents.

In an April 18-19 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, only one-quarter of respondents approved of the job Congress was doing.

In another question, 54 percent said it was fair to call this Congress a “do-nothing” Congress, while 31 percent disagreed.

Immigration Intensity. The Pew Research Center and the Pew Hispanic Center undertook an extensive nationwide survey on immigration in February and March. In addition, the surveyors looked at the views of people in five metropolitan areas: Phoenix, Chicago, Las Vegas, Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and Washington, D.C.

Nationally, one-third approved of the “Minutemen” who are “looking for illegal immigrants along the Mexican border in order to report them to authorities.” Twenty-two percent disapproved of the Minutemen, and 42 percent hadn’t heard anything about them. In only one metropolitan area, Phoenix, did a majority approve of their activities.

Only in the Phoenix metropolitan area did a majority--55 percent--describe immigration as a “very big problem” in their community. The Las Vegas metropolitan area ranked second-highest, with 36 percent giving that response.

In a question about the most important problem facing their community, 18 percent in the Phoenix area spontaneously volunteered immigration issues. This was the only metropolitan area surveyed in which immigration ranked as the top issue. It was mentioned by 6 percent in Las Vegas and 2 percent in the Chicago, Raleigh-Durham and D.C. areas.

In Gallup’s latest “most important problem” question, 19 percent spontaneously mentioned immigration. Gallup began tracking the issue in 1993, and it has never ranked among the top five issues until now. Nor has it ever reached double digits before.

Housing Prices. In an April Experian/Gallup survey, 32 percent of respondents said it was very or somewhat likely that their local area would experience a housing bubble in the next year. Seventy-one percent believed that this could happen nationally.

Six in 10 said they expected housing prices to increase in their own area over the next year, while 11 percent said they expect housing prices to decrease. In May 2005, 70 percent expected them to increase.

Rerunning the 2004 Election. An April 8-11 Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg national poll found that 39 percent of registered voters would vote for President Bush--“knowing what you know today”--while 49 percent would vote for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).

Terri Schiavo, One Year Later. ABC News returned to the subject of Terri Schiavo on the first anniversary of the brain-damaged woman’s controversial death on March 31, 2005.

In a March poll, 64 percent of respondents said the removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube was the right thing to do, while 27 percent said it was the wrong thing to do. Responses to a similar question last year were virtually identical, at 63 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

In the new poll, solid majorities of Democrats (65 percent), Republicans (65 percent) and independents (64 percent) agreed that removing the tube was the correct decision, as did white Catholics (73 percent) and evangelical white Protestants (61 percent). Non-whites were more closely split (48 percent to 41 percent).

In a Pew Research Center poll this year, 72 percent said Congress should have stayed out of the Schiavo case.

Home Schooling Surge. In a March Harris Interactive survey, 34 percent know someone who currently home schools a child. Among households with children who have attended school, 8 percent say their child has been home-schooled. The top reasons: dissatisfaction with academic instruction (65 percent) and moral and religious instruction (60 percent).

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to know someone who has home-schooled their child (40 percent to 29 percent).

Divorce. A March 10-12 Gallup poll found that 30 percent of respondents said that they had been divorced, up from 23 percent in 1985. Differences among self-identified partisans were small. Thirty-one percent of Republicans, 32 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of independents said they had been divorced.

The F Word. The Associated Press and Ipsos recently looked at attitudes toward profanity, and particularly the use of the “F word.”

Twenty-seven percent of Republicans and 31 percent of Democrats admitted to using it in conversations a few times a week or more. Thirty-nine percent of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats say they never used it.

Karlyn Bowman is a resident fellow at AEI.