WASHINGTON — With the Supreme Court nomination process for Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. on hold until hearings in early January, the Senate Judiciary Committee changed course Wednesday to address whether sessions of the court Alito hopes to join should be televised.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the committee's chairman, told a hearing that opening the Supreme Court to television coverage would be "an enormously useful tool for public understanding" and would allow the American people to properly evaluate how their government functions.
Under his proposal, which he introduced last month, cameras would be removed only if a majority of the justices determined that their presence would undermine the due process of a litigant in a specific case.
The Supreme Court makes audio recordings of its proceedings, but releases them immediately only on rare occasions -- such as after the arguments in Bush vs. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 presidential election.
In addition to Specter's legislation, the panel also considered a broader bill first introduced by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2001 and reintroduced again this year.
Dubbed the "Sunshine in the Courtroom Act," Grassley's bill would allow the presiding judge of a specific case to decide whether video devices would be permitted during sessions in federal district and appellate courts.
Coincidentally on Wednesday, the House, by a vote of 375 to 45, passed courtroom security legislation that would give federal judges the option of having proceedings in their courtrooms televised. The White House has already announced opposition to the proposal, contending that televising court sessions could influence the proceedings and compromise the security of witnesses.
Within the California delegation, Democrats Bob Filner (Chula Vista), Barbara Lee (Oakland), George Miller (Martinez), Lucille Roybal-Allard (East Los Angeles), Hilda L. Solis (El Monte), Pete Stark (Fremont), Maxine Waters (Los Angeles), Henry A. Waxman (Los Angeles) and Lynn Woolsey (Petaluma) were opposed; all other delegation members were in favor.
According to the administrative office of the federal court system, appellate courts can set their own policies regarding television coverage, and the ones in New York and San Francisco have voted to permit cameras. No cameras are permitted in federal district courts.
