Commentary: Specter and TV in the Court
on Apr 25, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Washington newspaper readers woke up on Tuesday morning to a new demand, by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, that the Supreme Court be ordered to open its public proceedings to television coverage. The chairman, in an op-ed article in The Washington Post, made it clear Specter wants to tie the the issue of cameras in the Court to the Court’s rulings striking down federal laws under the Constitution. He makes it appear that part of his motive for sponsoring legislation to put cameras in the Court is hostility to what he calls the Court’s “super-legislature status.” The merits of TV coverage appear to get second priority. The column can be found here.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on March 30 approved for Senate consideration a bill that would direct the Court to permit TV coverage, outlining what the Court would have to do to keep the cameras out, case by case. The bill, S. 1768, as reported, can be found here. The bill is now on the Senate’s legislative calendar, awaiting scheduling of further action.
The Specter column Tuesday appeared to be, at least in part, a reaction to recent congressional testimony by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas, objecting to the Court being forced to accept TV coverage. “The two justices insisted,” the chairman wrote, “that Congress should mind its own business and respect the Court’s autonomy, just as the Court has respected Congress’s autonomy.”
But, he goes on, “does the Supreme Court respect Congress?” He does not then complain of Court intrusion into the internal workings of Congress and the decision of the Senate and House to allow cameras in the legislative halls. Rather, he complains of decisions the Court has made on the merits — a decision striking down part of the Violence Against Women Act and an employment discrimination decision that Specter does not further identify, although he seems to be referring to a ruling on the Americans with Disabilities Act and state sovereignty.
“Within the past decade, the Court has expanded its super-legislature status by invalidating legislation it dislikes, plucking out of the air a brand-new doctrine that acts of Congress are ‘disproportionate and incongruent,’ whatever that means,” according to the chairman, in comments that sound very much like ill-disguised complaints of rampant judicial activism. Thus, the issue of TV coverage of the Court begins to sound retaliatory.
He promotes his legislation as “in the public interest,” saying “the public needs to be able to assess these issues by shining a televised light on the justices.”
(Editing disclosure:: Throughout the column, Specter refers to the Court with a lower case “c.” It it this blog’s style to use a capital letter, so the chairman’s quotes have been so modified.)
