[国会纪录：2009年2月13日（参议院）] [Page S2332-S2336]关于引入的账单和幽灵先生（为自己，Grassley先生，德林先生，舒京先生，索默先生，索国先生Cornyn先生）：S.446.一项允许最高法院诉讼的条例草案;向司法委员会委员会。幽灵先生。主席先生，再一次，我寻求承认引进立法，使得公众对我们最高法院的更多信息。本条例草案要求高等法院允许电视覆盖其公开会议，除非它决定允许在特定案件中允许此类覆盖范围的大致表决将违反此事中的一个或多个缔约方的违法行为权。本立法的目的是开设最高法院的门，以便更多的美国人可以看到法院达成影响这个国家和日常美国人的法律的重要决定的过程。最高法院对宪法和联邦法律发出了直接影响美国人的权利的明治。通过电视法院的口头论据来说，这些权利将大大加强，以便公众可以看到和听取给法院提出的问题。金博宝正规网址通过这些信息，公众将深入了解关键问题，并更好地提供了解法院决定的影响和原因。金博宝正规网址 In a very fundamental sense, televising the Supreme Court has been implicitly recognized--perhaps even sanctioned--in a 1980 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States entitled Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia. In this case, the Court noted that a public trial belongs not only to the accused but to the public and the press as well and recognized that people now acquire information on court procedures chiefly through the print and electronic media. That decision, in referencing the electronic media, appears to anticipate televising court proceedings, although I do not mean to suggest that the Supreme Court is in agreement with this legislation. I should note that the Court could, on its own initiative, televise its proceedings but has chosen not to do so. This presents, in my view, the necessity for legislating on this subject. When I argued the case of the Navy Yard, Dalton v. Specter, back in 1994, the Court proceedings were illustrated by an artist's drawings-- some of which now hang in my office. Today, the public gets a substantial portion, if not most, of its information from television and the internet. While many court proceedings are broadcast routinely on television, the public has little access to the most important and highest court in this country. Although the internet has made the Court's transcripts, and even more recently, audio recordings, more widely accessible, the public is still deprived of the real time transmission of audio and video feeds from the Court. I believe it is vital for the public to see, as well as to hear, the arguments made before the Court and the interplay among the justices. I think the American people will gain a greater respect for the way in which our High Court functions if they are able to see oral arguments. Justice Felix Frankfurter perhaps anticipated the day when Supreme Court arguments would be televised when he said that he longed for a day when: ``The news media would cover the Supreme Court as thoroughly as it did the World Series, since the public confidence in the judiciary hinges on the public's perception of it, and that perception necessarily hinges on the media's portrayal of the legal system.'' When I spoke in favor of this legislation in September of 2000, I said, ``I do not expect a rush to judgment on this very complex proposition, but I do believe the day will come when the Supreme Court of the United States will be televised. That day will come, and it will be decisively in the public interest so the public will know the magnitude of what the Court is deciding and its role in our democratic process.'' I have continued to reiterate those sentiments in September of 2005 and in January of 2007 when I re-introduced identical bills. Today, I continue to support this legislation because I believe that it is crucial to the public's awareness of Supreme Court proceedings and their impact on the daily lives of all Americans. I pause to note that it was not until 1955 that the Supreme Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice Warren, first began permitting audio recordings of oral arguments. Between 1955 and 1993, there were apparently over 5,000 recorded arguments before the Supreme Court. That roughly translates to an average of about 132 arguments annually. But audio recordings are simply ill suited to capture the nuance of oral arguments and the sustained attention of the American citizenry. Nor is it any response that people who wish to see open sessions of the Supreme Court should come to the Capital and attend oral arguments. For, according to one source: ``Several million people each year visit Washington, D.C., and many thousands tour the White House and the Capitol. But few have the chance to sit in the Supreme Court chamber and witness an entire oral argument. Most tourists are given just three minutes before they are shuttled out and a new group shuttled in. In cases that attract headlines, seats for the public are scarce and waiting lines are long. And the Court sits in open session less than two hundred hours each year. Television cameras and radio microphones are still banned from the chamber, and only a few hundred people at most can actually witness oral arguments. Protected by a marble wall from public access, the Supreme Court has long been the least understood of the three branches of our Federal Government.'' In light of the increasing public desire for information, it seems untenable to continue excluding cameras from the courtroom of the Nation's highest court. As one legal commentator observes: ``An effective and legitimate way to satisfy America's curiosity about the Supreme Court's holdings, Justices, and modus operandi is to permit broadcast coverage of oral arguments and decision announcements from the courtroom itself.'' Televised court proceedings better enable the public to understand the role of the Supreme Court and its impact on the key decisions of the day. Not only has the Supreme Court invalidated Congressional decisions where there was, in the views of many, simply a difference of opinion as to what is preferable public policy, but the Court determines novel issues such as whether AIDS is a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, whether Congress can ban obscenity from the Internet, and whether states can impose term limits upon members of Congress. The current Court, like its predecessors, hands down decisions which vitally affect the lives and liberties of all Americans. Since the Court's historic 1803 decision, Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court has the final authority on issues of enormous importance from birth to death. In Roe v. Wade, 1973, the Court affirmed a Constitutional right to abortion in this country and struck down state statutes banning or severely restricting abortion during the first two trimesters on the grounds that they violated a right to privacy inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. [[Page S2333]] In the case of Washington v. Glucksberg, 1997, the court refused to create a similar right to assisted suicide. Here the Court held that the Due Process Clause does not recognize a liberty interest that includes a right to commit suicide with another's assistance. In the Seventies, the Court first struck down then upheld state statutes imposing the death penalty for certain crimes. In Furman v. Georgia, 1972, the Court struck down Georgia's death penalty statute under the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment and stated that no death penalty law could pass constitutional muster unless it took aggravating and mitigating circumstances into account. This decision led Georgia and many States to amend their death penalty statutes and, four years later, in Gregg v. Georgia, 1976, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's amended death penalty statute. Over the years, the Court has also played a major role in issues of war and peace. In its opinion in Scott v. Sandford, 1857--better known as the Dred Scott decision--the Supreme Court held that Dred Scott, a slave who had been taken into ``free'' territory by his owner, was nevertheless still a slave. The Court further held that Congress lacked the power to abolish slavery in certain territories, thereby invalidating the careful balance that had been worked out between the North and the South on the issue. Historians have noted that this opinion fanned the flames that led to the Civil War. The Supreme Court has also ensured adherence to the Constitution during more recent conflicts. Prominent opponents of the Vietnam War repeatedly petitioned the Court to declare the Presidential action unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress had never given the President a declaration of war. The Court decided to leave this conflict in the political arena and repeatedly refused to grant writs of certiorari to hear these cases. This prompted Justice Douglas, sometimes accompanied by Justices Stewart and Harlan, to take the unusual step of writing lengthy dissents to the denials of cert. In New York Times Co. v. United States, 1971--the so called ``Pentagon Papers'' case--the Court refused to grant the government prior restraint to prevent the New York Times from publishing leaked Defense Department documents which revealed damaging information about the Johnson Administration and the war effort. The publication of these documents by the New York Times is believed to have helped move public opinion against the war. In its landmark civil rights opinions, the Supreme Court took the lead in effecting needed social change, helping us to address fundamental questions about our society in the courts rather than in the streets. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Court struck down the principle of ``separate but equal'' education for blacks and whites and integrated public education in this country. This case was then followed by a series of civil rights cases which enforced the concept of integration and full equality for all citizens of this country, including Gamer v. Louisiana, 1961, Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 1961, and Peterson v. City of Greenville, 1963. In recent years Marbury, Dred Scott, Furman, New York Times, and Roe, familiar names in the lexicon of lawyerly discussions concerning watershed Supreme Court precedents, have been joined with similarly important cases like Hamdi, Rasul, Roper, and Boumediene--all cases that affect fundamental individual rights. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2004, the Court concluded that although Congress authorized the detention of combatants, due process demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker. The Court reaffirmed the nation's commitment to constitutional principles even during times of war and uncertainty. Similarly, in Rasul v. Bush, 2004, the Court held that the Federal habeas statute gave district courts jurisdiction to hear challenges of aliens held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in the U.S. War on Terrorism. In Roper v. Simmons, a 2005 case, the Court held that executions of individuals who were under 18 years of age at the time of their capital crimes is prohibited by Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. In Boumediene v. Bush, 2008, the Court held that, subsequent to Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and regardless of Congress' attempts to strip federal courts of jurisdiction to consider pending habeas corpus petitions from Guantanamo detainees, the detainees nonetheless were not barred from seeking the writ and procedures under the Detainee Treatment Act were not an adequate substitute for it. When deciding issues of such great national import, the Supreme Court is rarely unanimous. In fact, a large number of seminal Supreme Court decisions, such as Boumediene, have been reached through a vote of 5-4. Such a close margin reveals that these decisions are far from foregone conclusions distilled from the meaning of the Constitution, reason and the application of legal precedents. On the contrary, these major Supreme Court opinions embody critical decisions reached on the basis of the preferences and views of each individual justice. In a case that is decided by a vote of 5-4, an individual justice has the power by his or her vote to change the law of the land. Since the beginning of its October 2005 term when Chief Justice Roberts first began hearing cases, the Supreme Court has issued 45 decisions with a 5-4 split, not including the current October 2008 term, in which I understand there are additional 5-4 decisions within the few cases that have already been decided. It has also issued six 5- 3 decisions in which one justice recused. Finally, it has issued a rare 5-2 decision in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito took no part, and in the October 2007 term, two 4-4 ties. In sum, since the beginning of its October 2005 term and not counting the current term, the Supreme Court has issued 52 decisions establishing the law of the land in which only 5 justices explicitly concurred. Many of these narrow majorities occur in decisions involving the Court's interpretation of our Constitution--a sometimes divisive endeavor on the Court. I will not discuss all 52 thinly decided cases but will describe a few to illustrate my point about the importance of the Court and its decisions in the lives of Americans. The first 5-4 split decision, decided on January 11, 2006, was Brown v. Sanders. In this case the Court considered ``the circumstances in which an invalidated sentencing factor will render a death sentence unconstitutional by reason of its adding an improper element to the aggravation scale in the jury's weighing process.'' A majority of the Court held that henceforth in death penalty cases, an invalidated sentencing factor will render the sentence unconstitutional by reason of its adding an improper element to the aggravation scale unless one of the other sentencing factors enables the sentencer to give aggravating weight to the same facts and circumstances. The majority opinion was authored by Justice Scalia and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices O'Connor, Kennedy and Thomas. Justice Stevens filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Souter joined. Similarly, Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Ginsburg joined. In November 2006, the Supreme Court decided Ayers v. Belmontes, a capital murder case in which the Belmontes contended that California law and the trial court's instructions precluded the jury from considering his forward looking mitigation evidence suggesting he could lead a constructive life while incarcerated. In Ayers the Supreme Court found the Ninth Circuit erred in holding that the jury was precluded by jury instructions from considering mitigation evidence. Justice Kennedy authored the majority opinion while Justice Stevens wrote a dissent joined by three other justices. Other 5-4 split decisions since October 2005 include United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, concerning whether a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated when a district court refused to grant his paid lawyer permission to represent him based upon some past ethical violation by the lawyer, June 26, 2006; LULAC v. Perry, deciding whether the 2004 Texas redistricting violated provisions of the Voting Rights Act, June 28, 2006; Kansas v. Marsh, concerning the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments in a capital murder case in which the defense argued that a Kansas statute established [[Page S2334]] an unconstitutional presumption in favor of the death sentence when aggravating and mitigating factors were in equipoise, April 25, 2006; Clark v. Arizona, a capital murder case involving the constitutionality of an Arizona Supreme Court precedent governing the admissibility of evidence to support an insanity defense, June 29, 2006; Garcetti v. Ceballos, a case holding that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties they are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline, May 30, 2006; and District of Columbia v. Heller, June 26, 2008, which found that Washington, D.C.'s gun laws were unconstitutionally restrictive of rights afforded under the Second Amendment. The justices have split 5-3 six times since October 2005. In Georgia v. Randolph, March 22, 2006, a 5-3 majority of the Supreme Court held that a physically present co-occupant's stated refusal to permit a warrantless entry and search rendered the search unreasonable and invalid as to that occupant. Justice Souter authored the majority opinion. Justice Stevens filed a concurring opinion as did Justice Breyer. The Chief Justice authored a dissent joined by Justice Scalia. Moreover, Justice Scalia issued his own dissent as did Justice Thomas. In Randolph, there were six opinions in all from a Court that only has nine justices. One can only imagine the spirited debate and interplay of ideas, facial expressions and gestures that occurred in oral arguments. Audio recordings are simply inadequate to capture all of the nuance that only cameras could capture and convey. In House v. Bell, a 5-3 opinion authored by Justice Kennedy, June 12, 2006, the Supreme Court held that because House had made the stringent showing required by the actual innocence exception to judicially- established procedural default rules, he could challenge his conviction even after exhausting his regular appeals. Justice Alito took no part in considering or deciding the House case. It bears noting, however, that if one justice had been on the other side of this decision it would have resulted in a 4-4 tie and, ultimately, led to affirming the lower court's denial of House's post-conviction habeas petitions due to a procedural default. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a 5-3 decision in which Chief Justice Roberts took no part, the Supreme Court held that Hamdan could challenge his detention and the jurisdiction of the President's military commissions to try him despite recent enactment of the Detainee Treatment Act. A thin majority of the justices supported the decision despite knowledge that the DTA explicitly provides ``no court . . . shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider . . . an application for . . . habeas corpus filed by . . . an alien detained . . . at Guantanamo Bay.'' In deciding the merits, the Court went on to hold that the President lacked authority to establish a military commission to try Hamdan or others without enabling legislation passed by both houses of Congress and enacted into law. This case was one of a handful of recent cases in which the Supreme Court released audiotapes of oral arguments almost immediately after they occurred. Yet it would have been vastly preferable to watch the parties' advocates grapple with the legal issues as the justices peppered them with jurisdictional, constitutional and merits-related questions from the High Court's bench. In another fascinating 5-3 case, Jones v. Flowers, April 26, 2006, the Supreme Court considered whether, when notice of a tax sale is mailed to the owner and returned undelivered, the government must take additional reasonable steps to provide notice before taking the owner's property. In an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court held that where the Arkansas Commissioner of State Lands had mailed Jones a certified letter and it had been returned unclaimed, the Commissioner had to take additional reasonable steps to provide Jones notice. Justices Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy dissented and Justice Alito took no part in the decision. Though Jones v. Flowers involved the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, not the Takings Clause of Fifth Amendment, one could draw interesting analogies to the Court's controversial 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London. In Kelo, a majority of the justices held that a city's exercise of eminent domain power in furtherance of a privately initiated economic development plan satisfied the Constitution's Fifth Amendment ``public use'' requirement despite the absence of any blight. Four justices dissented in Kelo and public opinion turned sharply against the decision immediately after it was issued. It's possible, though merely speculative, that the public ire aimed at Kelo informed what became a majority of justices in Jones v. Flowers. In a passage by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court notes, ``when a letter is returned by the post office, the sender will ordinarily attempt to resend it, if it is practicable to do so. This is especially true when, as here, the subject matter of the letter concerns such an important and irreversible prospect as the loss of a house.'' Not only lawyers but all homeowners could benefit from knowing how the Court grapples with legal issues governing the rights to their houses. My legislation creates the opportunity for all interested Americans to watch the Court in action in cases like these. From his perch on the High Court one justice has been heard to contend that most Americans could care less about the arcane legal issues argued before the Court. But as elected representatives of the people we must endeavor to view America from a bottoms-up, rather than a top-down perspective. Regardless of one's view concerning the merits of these decisions, it is clear that they frequently have a profound effect on the interplay between the government, on the one hand, and the individual on the other. So, it is with these watershed decisions in mind that I introduce legislation designed to make the Supreme Court less esoteric and more accessible to common men and women who are so clearly affected by its decisions. Given the enormous significance of each vote cast by each justice on the Supreme Court, televising the proceedings of the Supreme Court will allow sunlight to shine brightly on these proceedings and ensure greater public awareness and scrutiny. In a democracy, the workings of the government at all levels should be open to public view. With respect to oral arguments, the more openness and the more real the opportunity for public observation the greater the understanding and trust. As the Supreme Court observed in the 1986 case of Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, ``People in an open society do not demand infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing.'' It was in this spirit that the House of Representatives opened its deliberations to meaningful public observation by allowing C-SPAN to begin televising debates in the House chamber in 1979. The Senate followed the House's lead in 1986 by voting to allow television coverage of the Senate floor. Beyond this general policy preference for openness, however, there is a strong argument that the Constitution requires that television cameras be permitted in the Supreme Court. It is well established that the Constitution guarantees access to judicial proceedings to the press and the public. In 1980, the Supreme Court relied on this tradition when it held in Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia that the right of a public trial belongs not just to the accused, but to the public and the press as well. The Court noted that such openness has ``long been recognized as an indisputable attribute of an Anglo-American trial.'' Recognizing that in modern society most people cannot physically attend trials, the Court specifically addressed the need for access by members of the media: ``Instead of acquiring information about trials by first hand observation or by word of mouth from those who attended, people now acquire it chiefly through the print and electronic media. In a sense, this validates the media claim of acting as surrogates for the public. [Media presence} contributes to public understanding of the rule of law and to comprehension of the functioning of the entire criminal justice system.'' [[Page S2335]] To be sure, a strong argument can be made that forbidding television cameras in the court, while permitting access to print and other media, constitutes an impermissible discrimination against one type of media over another. In recent years, the Supreme Court and lower courts have repeatedly held that differential treatment of different media is impermissible under the First Amendment absent an overriding governmental interest. For example, in 1983 the Court invalidated discriminatory tax schemes imposed only upon certain types of media in Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue. In the 1977 case of ABC v. Cuomo, the Second Circuit rejected the contention by the two candidates for mayor of New York that they could exclude some members of the media from their campaign headquarters by providing access through invitation only. The Court wrote that: ``Once there is a public function, public comment, and participation by some of the media, the First Amendment requires equal access to all of the media or the rights of the First Amendment would no longer be tenable.'' However, in the 1965 case of Estes v. Texas, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the denial of television coverage of trials violates the equal protection clause. In the same opinion, the Court held that the presence of television cameras in the Court had violated a Texas defendant's right to due process. Subsequent opinions have cast serious doubt upon the continuing relevance of both prongs of the Estes opinion. In its 1981 opinion in Chandler v. Florida, the court recognized that Estes must be read narrowly in light of the state of television technology at that time. The television coverage of Estes' 1962 trial required cumbersome equipment, numerous additional microphones, yards of new cables, distracting lighting, and numerous technicians present in the courtroom. In contrast, the court noted, television coverage in 1980 can be achieved through the presence of one or two discreetly placed cameras without making any perceptible change in the atmosphere of the courtroom. Accordingly, the Court held that, despite Estes, the presence of television cameras in a Florida trial was not a violation of the rights of the defendants in that case. By the same logic, the holding in Estes that exclusion of television cameras from the courts did not violate the equal protection clause must be revisited in light of the dramatically different nature of television coverage today. Given the strength of these arguments, it is not surprising that over the last two decades there has been a rapidly growing acceptance of cameras in American courtrooms which has reached almost every court except for the Supreme Court itself. On September 6, 2000, the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts held a hearing titled ``Allowing Cameras and Electronic Media in the Courtroom.'' The primary focus of the hearing was Senate bill S. 721, legislation introduced by Senators Grassley and Schumer that would give Federal judges the discretion to allow television coverage of court proceedings. One of the witnesses at the hearing, the late Judge Edward R. Becker, then- Chief Judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, spoke in opposition to the legislation and the presence of television cameras in the courtroom. The remaining five witnesses, however, including a Federal judge, a State judge, a law professor and other legal experts, all testified in favor of the legislation. They argued that cameras in the courts would not disrupt proceedings but would provide the kind of accountability and access that is fundamental to our system of government. On November 9, 2005, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing to address whether Federal court proceedings should be televised generally and to consider S. 1768, my earlier version of this bill, and S. 829, Senator Grassley's ``Sunshine in the Courtroom Act of 2005.'' During the November 9 hearing, most witnesses spoke favorably of cameras in the courts, particularly at the appellate level. Among the witnesses favorably disposed toward the cameras were Peter Irons, author of May It Please the Court, Seth Berlin, a First Amendment expert at a local firm, Brian Lamb, founder of C-SPAN, Henry Schleif of Court TV Networks, and Barbara Cochran of the Radio-Television News Directors Association and Foundation. The notable exception was the Honorable Judge Jan DuBois of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who testified on behalf of the Judicial Conference. Judge DuBois warned of problems particularly at the trial level, where witnesses who appear uncomfortable because of cameras might seem less credible to jurors. I note, however, that appellate courts do not appear susceptible to this criticism because there are no witnesses or jurors present for appellate arguments. The Judiciary Committee considered and passed both bills on March 30, 2006. The Committee vote to report S. 1768 was 12-6, and the bill was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar. Unfortunately, due to the press of other business neither bill was allotted time on the Senate Floor. Again, in the 110th Congress, I introduced this legislation, and it was reported out of the Judiciary Committee by a vote of 11-7. During their confirmation hearings over the past two years, Chief Justice John Roberts stated he would keep an open mind on the issue and Justice Alito stated that as a circuit judge he unsuccessfully voted, in the minority, to permit televised open proceedings in the Third Circuit. I applaud the fact the new Chief Justice has taken steps to make the Court more open and to ensure the timely publication of audio recordings of the arguments as well as the written transcripts. In my judgment, Congress, with the concurrence of the President, or overriding his veto, has the authority to require the Supreme Court to televise its proceedings. Such a conclusion is not free from doubt and is highly likely to be tested with the Supreme Court, as usual, having the final word. As I see it, there is clearly no constitutional prohibition against such legislation. Article 3 of the Constitution states that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested ``in one Supreme Court and such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.'' While the Constitution specifically creates the Supreme Court, it left it to Congress to determine how the Court would operate. For example, it was Congress that fixed the number of justices on the Supreme Court at nine. Likewise, it was Congress that decided that any six of these justices are sufficient to constitute a quorum of the Court. It was Congress that decided that the term of the Court shall commence on the first Monday in October of each year, and it was Congress that determined the procedures to be followed whenever the Chief Justice is unable to perform the duties of his office. Beyond such basic structural and operational matters, Congress also controls more substantive aspects of the Supreme Court. Most importantly, it is Congress that in effect determines the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Although the Constitution itself sets out the original jurisdiction of the Court, it provides that appellate jurisdiction exists ``with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.'' Some objections have been raised to televised proceedings of the Supreme Court on the ground that it would subject justices to undue security risks. My own view is such concerns are vastly overstated. Well-known members of Congress walk on a regular basis in public view in the Capitol complex. Other very well-known personalities, presidents, vice presidents, cabinet officers, all are on public view with even incumbent presidents exposed to risks as they mingle with the public. Such risks are minimal in my view given the relatively minor ensure that Supreme Court justices would undertake through television appearances. Also, any concerns could be mitigated by focusing only on the attorneys presenting arguments. There is no requirement that the justices permit the cameras to focus on the bench. As I explained earlier, the Supreme Court could, of course, permit television through its own rule but has decided not to do so. Congress should be circumspect and even hesitant to impose a rule mandating the televising of Supreme Court proceedings and should do so only in the face of compelling public policy reasons. The Supreme Court has such a dominant role in key [[Page S2336]] decision-making functions that their proceedings ought to be better known to the public; and, in the absence of Court rule, public policy would be best served by enactment of legislation requiring the televising of Supreme Court proceedings. This legislation embodies sound policy and will prove valuable to the all Americans. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. ______