By Tyler Cooper, FTC senior researcher

With all the justices fully vaccinated, and vaccination rates continuing to climb, the Supreme Court announced today its plans to resume in person oral argument for the October, November and December sessions.

Though the doors to One First Street will remain closed to the public, the court is planning to continue its practice of providing live argument audio, as it has since May 2020.

This is a major victory for transparency!

The court declined to announce that live audio broadcast will remain permanently. But it seems exceedingly unlikely that the court would try to claw back live audio access after seeing its unmitigated success for nearly a year.

Live audio broadcast this coming term should be made even easier than before considering the proceedings will now be held in person at the Supreme Court Building.

Every other federal appeals court already has announced plans to continue livestreaming, and further details on those plans are available here, our circuit broadcast tracker that we update at the beginning of each month.