Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. You may not
Speaker 1: have heard that two Supreme Court Justices testified before the
Speaker 1: House Appropriation Subcommittee last week because it didn't get much
Speaker 1: press coverage. It was a standard budget hearing, with Justice
Speaker 1: a Elana Kagan and Samuel Alito asking for increased funding
Speaker 1: for the Court's budget, but it was the first time
Speaker 1: since the justice appeared before the committee for this rare,
Speaker 1: unscripted dialogue. Joining me as constitutional law experts, Stephen Vladdock,
Speaker 1: professor at the University of Texas Law School, So Steve,
Speaker 1: Justice Alito referred to himself and Justice Kagan as rookies.
Speaker 1: How is it decided which justices testify and when? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a bit of a short straw. I
Speaker 1: think the justices in general aren't necessarily enthusiastic about the
Speaker 1: prospect of, you know, being open to live, not always
Speaker 1: scripted questioning on television on camera. Historically, in the past,
Speaker 1: it has actually been, you know, a function that Justices
Speaker 1: Briar and Kennedy seemed to revel. And I guess we're
Speaker 1: seeing this new you know, tag team of Kagan and Aledo,
Speaker 1: perhaps because of Justice Kennedy's departure. Now, one thing that
Speaker 1: came under scrutiny. The Supreme Court considers itself exempt from
Speaker 1: the code of conduct that lower courts are bound by.
Speaker 1: And the lawmakers pressed the justices on this, and Justice
Speaker 1: Kagan said that the Chief Justice is considering whether to
Speaker 1: create a code of conduct for Supreme Court. Justice is
Speaker 1: the Chief Justice is studying the question of whether to
Speaker 1: have a code of judicial conduct that's applicable only to
Speaker 1: the United States Supreme Court. So that's something that we
Speaker 1: have not discussed as a conference yet, and that has
Speaker 1: pros and cons, I'm sure, but it's something that's um
Speaker 1: that's intellect very seriously about how important is it for
Speaker 1: the court to have that? Oh, I think it's enormously important, June.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a there's a good reason why the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court historically has viewed itself as being not covered
Speaker 1: by these statutes, and that has to do with, you know,
Speaker 1: views about congressive constitutional power to bind the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: as opposed to the lower federal courts. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that the justices shouldn't have their own rules that
Speaker 1: they publicize, that they you know, make every effort to follow,
Speaker 1: and that when they, you know, somehow want to foul them,
Speaker 1: there's some kind of public acknowledgement and inquurity. I think
Speaker 1: the real question June is not whether the Court's going
Speaker 1: to adopt some kind of internal ethics code, and then
Speaker 1: the real questions how's it going to be enforced? And
Speaker 1: you know, if and when a justice commits an ethical
Speaker 1: faux pa um, is there going to be some kind
Speaker 1: of public accounting that there's gonna be some kind of
Speaker 1: grievance procedure. You know, it's one thing to say, yes,
Speaker 1: will generally be bound by these rules, but those rules
Speaker 1: are only going to be as good as the notion
Speaker 1: that there's some consequence for violating them. Now, Democratic Representative
Speaker 1: Stanford Bishop site of National Law Journal study about the
Speaker 1: low numbers of minority law klerks that's come up in
Speaker 1: prior hearings. Are the justices doing any better in that regard?
Speaker 1: I think June and Summer steps they are, and Summer
Speaker 1: steps they aren't. I mean, I think, um Justice Kegan
Speaker 1: pointed out that this term is one of the first times,
Speaker 1: if not the first time ever, that the majority of
Speaker 1: the clerks at the Supreme Court have been women. But
Speaker 1: I think there's still, you know, dramatic underrepresentation on the
Speaker 1: Court of people of color, of women of color, of
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other you know, minority, ethnic and
Speaker 1: national origin groups. And I think, you know, the Justices are,
Speaker 1: perhaps because of the Havanaugh confirmation implications and continuing effects,
Speaker 1: increasingly aware of this. I think between part of the
Speaker 1: problem is that and Justice Kegan just lead. I think
Speaker 1: both alluded to this in their testimony. There's still serious
Speaker 1: problems of underrepresentation among the cadre of law students from
Speaker 1: whom the Justices are hiring their law clerks. And so
Speaker 1: I think, you know, the justices can do better, but
Speaker 1: the larger stories the law schools have to be doing
Speaker 1: better as well. They appeared before cameras at the hearing.
Speaker 1: They still don't want cameras filming Supreme Court oral arguments,
Speaker 1: something justices often say they're in favor of before they
Speaker 1: get on the court, then all of a sudden they're
Speaker 1: not in favor of it. Do their arguments have any
Speaker 1: weight in this world where everyone has a camera on
Speaker 1: their phone and you have pictures of everything. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. I wonder if if maybe there's
Speaker 1: some movement publicly about this this view. I mean, the
Speaker 1: these confirmation flights tend to be the moments when the
Speaker 1: Court is most exposed to public scrutiny, and it might
Speaker 1: actually be better for everybody if the Court was also
Speaker 1: more accessible to the public and the more mundane day
Speaker 1: to day stuff it's doing. You know, the concern you
Speaker 1: always hear from the justices, and we heard this from
Speaker 1: Justice Alito at the hearing is that, you know, the
Speaker 1: presence of television cameras and of the sort of live
Speaker 1: same day recording would incentivize, you know, grandstanding by lawyers,
Speaker 1: would sort of push people to aim for sound bites
Speaker 1: as opposed to actually digging on the you know, the
Speaker 1: heart of the case. I'd have to say, I mean,
Speaker 1: there a number of lower federal courts June As you know,
Speaker 1: that do video record their arguments, some of them even
Speaker 1: live student arguments. To my understand them, that's never been
Speaker 1: a concern anyone's raised in that context. I guess I
Speaker 1: just worried that, you know, this could be something of
Speaker 1: a straw man um an argument's being deployed that wouldn't
Speaker 1: actually come to fruition and practice, and that the cost
Speaker 1: is access to these recordings on the same day basis.
Speaker 1: It seems like there's a compromise that, you know, even
Speaker 1: if we're not going to move towards video recording at
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, we know the Court has the capability
Speaker 1: of releasing same day audio from oral arguments. You know,
Speaker 1: I think that could be something we see the Court
Speaker 1: moved toward as a matter of course, as opposed to
Speaker 1: for exceptional cases the next year or two. But I
Speaker 1: think it's going to take a majority of the justices,
Speaker 1: you know, get him over this, and that might be
Speaker 1: a generational phenomenon. Before we're going to see cameras in
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court room and the audio comes out typically
Speaker 1: on a Friday afternoon, the audio from the whole week.
Speaker 1: Let's turn to the federal courts in general. Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 1: Senate majority leader, is focused on transport being the judiciary
Speaker 1: to a more conservative bent. Is there a danger in
Speaker 1: his apparent rush to confirm judges and I think there's
Speaker 1: always a danger, regardless of what your politics are of
Speaker 1: you know, of Congress sort of abandoned its traditions in
Speaker 1: the name of, you know, sort of winning short term
Speaker 1: political fights. I think we've seen in the last couple
Speaker 1: of months some new precedents being set with regard to
Speaker 1: appellate judges. We saw you in for the first time ever,
Speaker 1: a federal judge being confirmed on a tie breaking vote
Speaker 1: by the Vice President. We've seen the demise of the
Speaker 1: so called blue slip policy, where senators from a particular
Speaker 1: state could block nominees for at least circuit judge ships
Speaker 1: in their state. And I think, you know, the real
Speaker 1: question is what kind of precedent is going to step
Speaker 1: going forward. I mean, the next time, you know, the
Speaker 1: Democrats control the White House in the Senate, are we
Speaker 1: going to see a similarly radical push to transform the
Speaker 1: courts in the other direction or the courts just going
Speaker 1: to become a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth
Speaker 1: from one partisan extreme to the other. And I guess
Speaker 1: my concern in the long term is that we need
Speaker 1: the principal center. What makes the federal courts work best
Speaker 1: is an array of viewpoints from across the spectrum, including
Speaker 1: folks in the middle. And the more that we see
Speaker 1: this kind of approach judicial confirmations, the more we're going
Speaker 1: to see what happens to the courts mirroring what's happened
Speaker 1: in Congress, where we've seen a hollowing out of the
Speaker 1: center and an increase in push towards both wings. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's healthy in the long term for the
Speaker 1: federal courts. Is there any judge you think that has
Speaker 1: been confirmed that is not qualified to be there? You know,
Speaker 1: qualifications are so much in the eyes of the holder.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think if you look at like
Speaker 1: the youngest judges me just last week, Alison Russian was
Speaker 1: confirmed at the age of thirty seven to the Fourth Circuit,
Speaker 1: I don't think that, you know, qualifications in that context
Speaker 1: should be the be all end all. I think the
Speaker 1: question is are we really creating a federal bench that
Speaker 1: represents the country at large? And my concern is the
Speaker 1: more we're pushing to the extremes of either party, the
Speaker 1: less that's going to be the case in the country
Speaker 1: that is divided so evenly down the middle. Thanks Steve,
Speaker 1: we have to leave it there that Steve Lattic, a
Speaker 1: professor at the University of Texas School of Law. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe
Speaker 1: and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and
Speaker 1: on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg