Opposition from the Judicial Conference once again makes zero sense

Two bipartisan court transparency bills that Fix the Court endorsed advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee today.

First, the Cameras in the Courtroom Act, led by Sens. Grassley and Durbin, would require the justices to videostream their oral arguments and opinion announcements.

Second, the Sunshine the Courtroom Act, led by Sens. Grassley and Klobuchar, would give district and appeals court judges the authority to decide whether they want to permit video of proceedings in their courtrooms. (Photo below right is a screencap of a recent proceeding in N.D. Cal., one of the three U.S. District Courts where cameras are permitted.)

Fix the Court’s Gabe Roth was pleased to see both advance.

Roth said: “There are about 2,400 federal judges across the country doing their jobs, and doing them well for the most part, every day, and I’d trust them to make the right call on broadcast access to their courtrooms more than an out-of-touch policymaking body based in D.C. like the Judicial Conference. That’s what the Sunshine bill does — it gives them the discretion to broadcast or not.”

“On the Cameras bill,” he added, “oral arguments at the Supreme Court are one of the most impressive things our government officials do: nine justices from different personal and political backgrounds grapple thoughtfully and cordially with difficult issues each time they sit on the bench. I may not like the outcomes, but I appreciate that there is a model for how to disagree agreeably, which is something every American should have the opportunity to watch, not just in person but also wherever else they’re getting their news these days.”

The bottom line here is that video access to the Supreme Court and the lower courts would be nothing like such access in Congress. Judges and justices don’t run for reelection or seek to curry favor with a fickle public so don’t need to ham it up for the cameras. Attorneys that tried to grandstand would be swatted down in an instant.

With apex courts in all 50 states and most modern democracies allowing video, our vaunted Supreme Court shouldn’t be the outlier.

It’s also worth noting that the language on the Cameras bill requires video for both oral arguments and opinion announcements at the Supreme Court. Even though the public gets live audio for the former (which is half as good as live video but better than nothing), we only get audio-several-months-later for the latter, which renders it all but useless from a news standpoint.

Judiciary opposition:
Finally and unsurprisingly, the Judicial Conference wrote a letter opposing the bill.

What is surprising is that they have the gall to lie in the letter, stating, “The legislation would result in significant costs to implement the proposed changes.”

How much does the judiciary think it costs to roll a camera into a courtroom? (It’s zero dollars.)

And if, say, a local public television station or media association offered to install a camera in a federal courtroom, do you think the judiciary would turn that down? They’d be incredibly stupid to.

Plus, a judge could easily tell a camera operator, “Don’t film the jurors or witnesses,” and if they did, they’d get a lifetime ban from the courtroom. Or a judge could have a court employee help produce to ensure compliance, or they could mandate a 10-second delay.

This is neither hard nor expensive, and it demonstrates an unfortunate lack of trust that judiciary brass has in their judges to run their courtrooms with decorum.

Timing and history:
These bills, or ones very similar, have been introduced in a dozen Congresses over the last two decades.

Most recently, they made it out of Committee in 2021; before that, the last time they made it out was 2011.

We hope that in honor of Sen. Durbin — a long-time champion of court transparency whose retirement is imminent — the Senate for the first time puts one or both of these bills on the floor for a vote.