WEBVTT - Supreme Court Plans a Transition to Electronic Filing

0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.160
<v Speaker 1>The Supreme Court hasn't changed much since moving into its

0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:08.039
<v Speaker 1>massive marvel marble building. The tables for the lawyers still

0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:10.719
<v Speaker 1>have quill pens on them. The Chief Justice writes his

0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.560
<v Speaker 1>opinions in Longhand, and cameras remained forbidden in the courtroom.

0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:17.640
<v Speaker 1>So it was actually news when the Supreme Court announced

0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.880
<v Speaker 1>recently it would require briefs to be filed electronically and

0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.680
<v Speaker 1>it would make them available to everyone online. It was

0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.680
<v Speaker 1>a step towards the kind of transparency that critics say

0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:30.920
<v Speaker 1>is often lacking at the Court. Our guest is someone

0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.160
<v Speaker 1>whose professional mission is to make the Court more open

0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.320
<v Speaker 1>and accountable. He's Gabe Roth, the executive director of the

0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.479
<v Speaker 1>group Fixed the Court. Gabe, thanks for joining us. I

0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.600
<v Speaker 1>want to start by playing a clip of something Chief

0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:47.520
<v Speaker 1>Justice John Roberts said in we are the most transparent

0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.680
<v Speaker 1>branch of government. Um. Everything we do that has an

0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:55.000
<v Speaker 1>impact is done in public. Gave. His point was at

0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:59.360
<v Speaker 1>the Court's most important Really, it's only important output are

0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.240
<v Speaker 1>its visions, and those are things where they include the reasoning.

0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.440
<v Speaker 1>They put those out in the public. Uh So is

0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:07.760
<v Speaker 1>a Chief Justice right that the Court is actually the

0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.440
<v Speaker 1>most transparent branch of the government. He's not greg he's

0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:15.360
<v Speaker 1>not at all the Court. While its opinions maybe posted

0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:20.479
<v Speaker 1>online and distributed within minutes of them being handed down

0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.040
<v Speaker 1>from the bench, the fact remains that if you are

0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:27.039
<v Speaker 1>a public official in seventeen there are certain responsibilities that

0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:28.920
<v Speaker 1>you have to the public. Doesn't matter if you're a

0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.559
<v Speaker 1>life tenure like the justices are not. And the fact

0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:37.080
<v Speaker 1>that you can't experience the cases of the court live

0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.520
<v Speaker 1>unless you're one of the lucky few who gets into

0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.800
<v Speaker 1>the courtroom on argument day, you don't know very much

0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.679
<v Speaker 1>about their travel, their stock ownership, their potential conflicts of interest.

0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.000
<v Speaker 1>It's not like the justices overall are in trouble, it's

0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.320
<v Speaker 1>not like they're they're unethical people. But if you are

0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:55.840
<v Speaker 1>going to have a life tenure position in the federal government,

0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.320
<v Speaker 1>there should be a little modicum of transparency in terms

0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.560
<v Speaker 1>of the way the stitution works and the outside activities

0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.600
<v Speaker 1>of the individuals who are part of that institution. With

0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.359
<v Speaker 1>with all that being said, does the Court get some

0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.040
<v Speaker 1>credit in your mind for this this new step with

0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.960
<v Speaker 1>regard to electronic filing and making uh they say they

0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.960
<v Speaker 1>will make essentially every brief that has filed with them

0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:23.160
<v Speaker 1>available to the public online. Absolutely, they they credit work,

0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.960
<v Speaker 1>credit is due. They've Chief Justice Roberts said that this

0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:28.480
<v Speaker 1>was going to happen within the next year or two.

0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:30.560
<v Speaker 1>I guess it took a little longer to work out

0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.320
<v Speaker 1>the kinks, and there's there's still a few kinks on

0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.400
<v Speaker 1>the on the website. UH. In addition to the filing,

0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.760
<v Speaker 1>the website was was remade within the last few weeks.

0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.280
<v Speaker 1>So so yeah, they absolutely get credit for this. I mean,

0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.079
<v Speaker 1>every other federal appeals court in the country has been

0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.680
<v Speaker 1>doing this for years. Most state courts have been doing

0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.480
<v Speaker 1>this for years. But there's as as the court likes

0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.240
<v Speaker 1>to say, there are reasons that they're the architecture one

0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.320
<v Speaker 1>of the architectural features of the building is turtles. The

0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:01.919
<v Speaker 1>court moves slowly of jurisprudentially and on trans parrency issues. Um,

0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:03.840
<v Speaker 1>but I'm young and I'm patient. I'm gonna keep pushing

0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.440
<v Speaker 1>them to, uh to to to become more transparent across

0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.320
<v Speaker 1>the board. But yes, they do. They do get credit

0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.200
<v Speaker 1>for doing something that they should have done a decade ago.

0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.280
<v Speaker 1>So I want to move to the subject that's that's

0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.600
<v Speaker 1>always a big one, which is UH television cameras, which

0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:19.519
<v Speaker 1>of course, are are forbidden in the Supreme Court. You

0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:23.800
<v Speaker 1>can bring still camera in there. Um. Nominees when they

0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.760
<v Speaker 1>get nominated to the Court tend to express at least

0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.440
<v Speaker 1>some openness to the idea of of cameras there. And

0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.160
<v Speaker 1>now Neil Gorsich was perhaps less open than some previous

0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.480
<v Speaker 1>nominees were. And then they joined the court um and

0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.440
<v Speaker 1>they seem a little less open to it. Um. Is

0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.760
<v Speaker 1>there some reason you think that happens That maybe speaks

0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:45.880
<v Speaker 1>to the notion that maybe once they get there, they

0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:50.320
<v Speaker 1>actually realize there are some downsides to having cameras there.

0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.840
<v Speaker 1>I don't. I don't. I don't necessarily buy that argument

0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.480
<v Speaker 1>about becoming a member of the court and then changing

0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:58.040
<v Speaker 1>the mind. I think it really has to do with

0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.600
<v Speaker 1>the fact that there is a fairly stark generational split

0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.200
<v Speaker 1>at the Court. Some of the justices were born You

0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.920
<v Speaker 1>think about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, uh Stephen Bryer,

0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:11.880
<v Speaker 1>and also the late Justice la Some of them were

0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:13.680
<v Speaker 1>born in the thirties, so they were growing up. They

0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.440
<v Speaker 1>were not having the ubiquity of television as someone like

0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:22.000
<v Speaker 1>you or I or anyone born after has and and

0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.480
<v Speaker 1>and as justice has become younger overall, to get more

0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.760
<v Speaker 1>used to the idea that, uh, if you're in public service,

0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.440
<v Speaker 1>if if you're a public figure, to use a legal term,

0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.560
<v Speaker 1>if you're a public figure, there's not the expectation, I mean,

0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:38.800
<v Speaker 1>there is the expectation that you're going to be filmed

0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:40.680
<v Speaker 1>on a fairly regular basis. So I think it's there

0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:42.839
<v Speaker 1>are a few holdout to maybe you're part of the

0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.479
<v Speaker 1>older generation. But I think that within a few years,

0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:49.120
<v Speaker 1>once the generational generations have turned on the Court, that

0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.279
<v Speaker 1>that will get will get cameras more importantly that we

0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.640
<v Speaker 1>it's it's more immediacy that we're after. If if live

0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.040
<v Speaker 1>you know, the Supreme Court we learned in the last

0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.960
<v Speaker 1>year has the capability of allowing live audio from the courtroom.

0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:05.279
<v Speaker 1>They live audio broadcast a Scalia memorial, so it's less

0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.640
<v Speaker 1>you know, look, it's about the the visuals. But but

0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.680
<v Speaker 1>to me, as as a former journalist, it's it's it's

0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:16.200
<v Speaker 1>more about the immediacy, about ensuring that the oral arguments

0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.800
<v Speaker 1>of the sixty or seventy cases that the Court heres

0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.920
<v Speaker 1>each year is capable in real time for the evening

0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.520
<v Speaker 1>news or the afternoon news. Um in the most modern

0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.720
<v Speaker 1>way possible, and that's audio live streaming, and then hopefully

0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.360
<v Speaker 1>we'll get cameras a few years after that. Gabe, I

0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:35.000
<v Speaker 1>want to play for you something else that that John

0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.720
<v Speaker 1>Roberts said about the idea of televising Supreme Court arguments. Um,

0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:40.719
<v Speaker 1>actually just do that. Do that in just a second.

0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:44.520
<v Speaker 1>Let me first ask you, Um, other than cameras, if

0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.240
<v Speaker 1>there's one other thing you could you would want the

0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.040
<v Speaker 1>Supreme Court to do to become more transparent, what would

0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.480
<v Speaker 1>you pick? I think it would be stock ownership. Only

0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.960
<v Speaker 1>three of the current justices own individual stocks and stocks

0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.200
<v Speaker 1>and individual companies. Uh, whether it be Cisco or Felled

0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:05.640
<v Speaker 1>both ways actually um or HP or uh Uh. Johnson

0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.080
<v Speaker 1>controls the only Briar, Aldo and Roberts owned stocks and

0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.200
<v Speaker 1>individual companies. And the reasons are Roberts invested when he

0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.600
<v Speaker 1>was at law partner. Briar and his wife were active

0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.760
<v Speaker 1>investors in the past. Aldo's father in law bequeathed a

0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:20.919
<v Speaker 1>bunch of stocks to him when he passed away. But

0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.720
<v Speaker 1>there's no reason that they should these three contrary to

0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.000
<v Speaker 1>the other six, or owning individual stocks because there's so

0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.400
<v Speaker 1>many cases. We have such a litigious society. Seven thousand

0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.719
<v Speaker 1>petitions come to the Supreme Court every year, and we

0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:35.040
<v Speaker 1>don't want these unnecessary recusals caused by having these individual stocks.

0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.480
<v Speaker 1>That Justice is should instead own blended funds or mutual

0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.520
<v Speaker 1>funds like there, like there the other six counterparts, and

0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.159
<v Speaker 1>instead should divest from individual stocks from the time that

0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.760
<v Speaker 1>they're on the bench in order to reduce the amount

0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.600
<v Speaker 1>for potential conflicts of interest. Let me go ahead and

0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.120
<v Speaker 1>play that clip from John Roberts talking about why he's

0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.800
<v Speaker 1>opposed to televising Supreme Court arguments. People say, you know,

0:06:55.880 --> 0:07:01.359
<v Speaker 1>everything other government institutions have been opened up, but be

0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:05.080
<v Speaker 1>interesting to know what governmental institutions people saying function better

0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.880
<v Speaker 1>now that they're on television. What do you think about that?

0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.280
<v Speaker 1>About a minute left, which you know, it's I think

0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.679
<v Speaker 1>it's an apples to oranges comparison. You think of Congress

0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.000
<v Speaker 1>on c SPAN. They're using those clips and their charts

0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:19.720
<v Speaker 1>to run for office, to run for re election, to

0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.160
<v Speaker 1>to sort of denigrate the other, the other party. A

0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.720
<v Speaker 1>lot of times the justices don't don't do that. They have,

0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:26.800
<v Speaker 1>you know, for better or worse, they have life tenure

0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.800
<v Speaker 1>and the the idea that anything which I mean, you know, empirically,

0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.200
<v Speaker 1>we know when cameras are used in appellate courts the

0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:36.320
<v Speaker 1>world over, from the Supreme Court of Ohio to the

0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.600
<v Speaker 1>Supreme Court of Brazil. Nothing changes all that from the

0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.360
<v Speaker 1>quality of the argument and the quality of what happens legally.

0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.200
<v Speaker 1>All that changes is that the American people are the

0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.000
<v Speaker 1>people who are not able to make it to the

0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.520
<v Speaker 1>courtroom are able to understand their government better. And I

0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.800
<v Speaker 1>think there's no better time than now, when where there's

0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.240
<v Speaker 1>a clearly a civic deficit in this country, to have

0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.560
<v Speaker 1>the citizens of this country understand what's going on at

0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.320
<v Speaker 1>the top court in the land. I want to thank

0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.080
<v Speaker 1>our guest Gave Broth, executive director of Fix the Court.

0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.520
<v Speaker 1>That's it for this edition of Bloomberg Law. We'll be

0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.320
<v Speaker 1>back tomorrow thanks to our technic Wold director Chris Try

0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.040
<v Speaker 1>Call Me and our producer David Sutterman. Coming up on

0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.840
<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Radio Bloomberg Markets with Corey Johnson. Stay tuned for

0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.080
<v Speaker 1>that and more here on Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg