A US Supreme Court justice once said something like "sunlight is the best disinfectant". He was talking about political corruption, but I think the Supreme Court should listen to that advice. At at time when the Court is not trusted by the left (Bush v. Gore, among other things) and the right (see Delay other's attacks on the court) the nine justices ought to consider opening their proceeding to the public. Sure, a few people can get in, and sit very quietly, while the justices listen to and question lawyers arguing their cases, that's not really an open meeting. Congress long ago gave up resistance to television and now C-SPAN is an institution and there's wide agreement that televising congressional proceedings is a good thing. It was not always so -- and some recent remarks by Antonin Scalia recall opposition by Congress to TV. The Washington Post reported on an interview with Scalia where he was asked about coverage of the Court:
"I wouldn't mind having the proceedings of the court, not just audioed, but televised, if I thought it would only go out on a channel that everyone would watch gavel to gavel", Scalia said. "But if you send it out on C-SPAN, what will happen is for every one person who sees it on C-SPAN gavel to gavel so they can really understand what the court is about, what the whole process is, 10,000 will see 15-second takeouts on the network news, which, I guarantee you, will be uncharacteristic of what the court does. So I have come to the conclusion that it will misinform the public rather than inform the public to have our proceedings televised."
What arrogant claptrap! He goes on to say that people won't watch the hourlong sessions -- despite plenty of evidence that people watch C-SPAN and even their local government in action when there's something important happening (and some of us wonks watch it even when nothing exciting is going on).
Should the Supreme Court televise is proceedings? It seems silly to even ask the question. Of course they should.
