Thanks to Tony Mauro of the National Law Journal, we’ve learned that not only will members of the Supreme Court not be testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on their budget as they usually do each March (see photo at right from last year), but members of Congress also went to the court last month to speak in private about the justice’s proposed 2017 financial plans.

Our reaction, from our executive director Gabe Roth:

The annual appropriations process is one of the few times all year the American people, no matter where in the country they live, have the opportunity to hear directly from the justices – live and uncut and thanks to C-SPAN. That members of the high court and the subcommittee would choose to discuss the budget off Capitol Hill and away from the cameras reflects a peculiar disdain these government officials seem to have for us common folk. After all, it’s the public’s money that the justices will be spending, and we should know how they’re thinking of spending it.

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