Senators introduce bill requiring televised Supreme Court sessions

By The Associated Press

09.22.00

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WASHINGTON — A bill to require the Supreme Court to televise its public sessions was introduced in the Senate yesterday.

The proposed legislation says the nation's highest court "shall permit" televised coverage of the 70 to 80 oral arguments it hears each year unless a majority of the nine justices concludes that doing so in a particular case would violate someone's rights.

The bill was introduced by Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Joseph Biden, D-Del.

"Since the Supreme Court ... has assumed the power to decide cutting-edge issues of public policy virtually as a super-legislature, the public has a right to know what the court is doing," a release from Specter's office said.

"Without interfering with the independent judiciary or challenging the Supreme Court's power for the final word in interpreting the Constitution, the Congress has the authority to legislate on the Supreme Court's operations," the release said.

There was no Supreme Court response to the bill. But in a 1996 letter to Specter, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said the justices "periodically considered the question of allowing live television and radio coverage ... and a majority are of the view that it would be unwise to depart from our current practice."

The court is notoriously camera-shy. Testifying before a Senate subcommittee four years ago, Justice David H. Souter said, "The day you see a camera come into our courtroom it's going to roll over my dead body."

Most of the court's work is done behind closed doors. Of the more than 8,000 cases that reach the court each October-through-June term, about 70 or 80 are granted full review. In those, lawyers for both sides appear before the court, usually in hour-long public sessions, before the justices begin the task of reaching their decision.

The court does audiotape its arguments, and those tapes are made publicly available after each term.

The ban on cameras in all federal courts dates back to 1937. The prohibition was partially interrupted for several years by a now-ended experiment that let individual courts decide whether to allow electronic coverage of courtroom proceedings.

Also pending before the Senate is a bill that would let presiding federal judges decide whether to allow electronic media coverage on a case-by-case basis.

The Radio-Television News Directors Association said yesterday it supported the bill proposed by Specter and Biden. "The arguments sometimes used against allowing television coverage, such as danger to the rights of defendants or undue pressure on witnesses and jurors, simply do not apply to the Supreme Court," said the group's president, Barbara Cochran.

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