all 50 states supreme courts allow for cameras in the courtroom. there are certain restrictions in about 14 states with regard to access to the trial courts and there's a distinction in some instances between several access and access in criminal cases. again, that is a state by state determination to be made by the judiciary and over all what we're addressing here is the access to the united states supreme court. think back judge starr mentioned the flag burning cases. but in the last year, we've had monumental cases of tremendous public import being decided by the united states supreme court. we've had the affordable healthcare act. how many people in this country will be impacted by that decision. we then fast forward to march of this year and we had the same-sex marriage issues. again monumental decisions that impact the quality of life for so many of our citizens and yet, what are we able to view with regards to those arguments. instead of seeing lawyering, superior advocacy and the interaction of the justices with those advocates and with one

supreme court. before we do, i do just want to share one personal anecdote about what scotus blog has meant to me as someone who follows the court closely. this summer, on june 26th, my 5-year-old daughter was scheduled to have her tonsils out. so those of you who follow it know that also happened to be the data windsor and perry, the two same-sex marriage cases came down from the court. my daughter was wheeled back from surgery at 9:59 which is -- [laughter] one minute before the court handed down. and so i was put in this terrible sophie's choice type position of caring for my daughter and refreshing scotus blog and following scotus blog over and over and over again which i'm sure the nurses had no understanding of what i was doing or thought i was a terrible parent. [laughter] it also shows the extent a that we rely on scotus blog to get our information in a timely way, to get it in the hospital rooms and the bedrooms and the academic settings around, so i'm very grateful for the work that you're

other justice have said if the supreme court accepts cameras. then this will force the lower the court accepting them too. and still others have said they're weary about any changes at all in the institution because they simply don't know how cameras would affect the supreme court's funking. -- functioning. we watched with interest as justice sotomayor talked about issue during the conformation hearing. she sounded favorable mr. wilson inclined. she volunteer as a judge to allow camera in the courtroom for pilot project and experiences were positive. she suggested that if she were confirmed she might express that view to her colleagues and their internal discussions if the subject came. she appears to have changed her mind. [laughter] there is little doubt that allowing public access to orm argument, i think would deepen unking of the court. they would be available on the internet and the over cable networks would obviously show if not the whole thing extended excerpts. justice scalia is the most outspoken about tv coverage. if it was allowed mos

supreme court to bring cases to the supreme court. my take away from the last decision is that justice kennedy had changed his mind about roe. three part of a group of justices who in the famous katie case had voted to save roe versus wade. the take away from kennedy's is that he believes on some level he got snookered, and people love over read his willingness to preserve the row right. -- roe right. it does seem likely that there are four members of the supreme court on the right who would be very willing to significantly right,cribe the roe although perhaps they would want to be incremental about it so it doesn't seem like they are being too aggressive. each abortion case that gets to the supreme court, you should expect the supreme court to materially restrict roe. it in a they will do way that does not seem entirely overt, but will send a strong signal to state legislatures that additional restrictions are constitutional. fact, justice o'connor was a big champion of the undue burden test for abortion restrictions. , the wallr on

the supreme court said no, that's not right. you can do that. here's some minor problems at the edges. and so i don't think that there is a separation of power constitutional problem with the court saying as it said in the recusal statute that it applies to the justices. the enforcement problem is a little harder because if the justices don't want to put the cameras in there unless the president is going to send troops in their, put the cameras in there and having the cameras roll, that they would be there. but who knows what the response would be? i would hope it doesn't come to that but it seems hard to believe all of these arguments here are extremely persuasive, and the life of the law may be experienced by the logic is all on the side of having cameras in the courtroom. it's hard to imagine what people of the american people would look like today on this question but it's hard to imagine almost anybody supporting. i remember when justice scalia was sworn in. he said, my question is can i go to the home depot, to buy some tools without everyb

supreme court. at will be our focus for today's "washington journal" throughout the show. first we will talk to some court.s of the supreme after that we will talk to to former clerks of the supreme court to get an idea of what it is like to work inside the supreme court and the workload for the justices and then later we will take phone calls about the supreme court opening session. we will get an idea of the major cases they will be taking up for the new term heard back to your phone calls about the shutdown. a lease, worn, ohio. good morning. i believe that the republicans have done us a service and a disservice at the same time area did as you look at where the conversation started, at first it started with the defunding of obamacare. now they have pretty much backed away from that and now they're talking about other concessions that the democrats, that they want from them so that the country doesn't go into default. obamacare started out to be the problem but now look at where they are going. i

and other justices have said that if the supreme court accepts cameras, then that will force the lower courts into accepting them too. and still others have said they're wary about any changes at all in the institution because they simply don't know how cameras would affect the supreme court's functioning. now, you talk about a possible generational shift, we watched with interest justice zone that sotomayor talk about this issue during her confirmation hearing, and she sounded very favorably inclined. she said she had volunteered as a judge to allow cameras in her courtrooms for pilot projects, and she said the experiences were positive. is she suggested that if she were confirmed, she might express that view to her colleagues in their internal discussions if the subject came up. she appears to have changed her mind. [laughter] there is little doubt that allowing public access to oral argument would, i think, deepen understanding of the court, and i say the same thing each term. if this argument is fascinating, i wish people could see it for themselves. and there's no doubt that c-spa

the important thing to remember is the supreme court has never struck down a federal contribution mandate. the establishment of our current campaign-finance jurisprudence, the foundational case was where the court decided that spending limits put too much of a burden on core political speech and therefore spending limits, actual caps on how much anyone can spend in the election of their own money on their own independent speech, they said that could not be cap. it was the decision in citizens united, saying that where justice kennedy found independent spending was not corrupting. which is something we can come back to. however, they have never passed -- casting doubt on the importance of contribution limits guarding the financial relationships between big donors and their actual checks directly to candidates or their campaign committees or the political parties. they understand that these kinds of financial relationships are far more open to real corruption concerns. moreover, it is not the direct political speech, actually just associational speech or when you contribute to somebody else

the supreme court responds to them and also to public pressure and we've seen the supreme court turn around we saw it in brown versus board of education in the one nine hundred fifty s. where the supreme court reversed itself after supporting segregation for four decades of the supreme court suddenly began to support integration in the schools you know i think what we're seeing in the supreme court and in our elected officials are basically a reflection of the power of intensely concentrated economic and political power in the hands of the one percent which is why we've got to fight this in every way possible you know i think it's important for people to weigh in with the supreme court with their congressmen and women and with the president that this is unacceptable that we cannot dismantle these protections in the same way that it is unacceptable to be holding the budget and the full faith and credit of the united states of america hostage here and what's basically an extortion game being played by the top one percent which only burglars broke in on this issue but the between t

in fact, all 50 state supreme court allow for cameras in the courtroom. there are certain restrictions in about 14 states with regard to access to the trial courts and there's a distinction in some -- access in civil cases and access in criminal cases. but again, that is a state-by-state determination to be made by the judiciary and overall what we're addressing here is the access to the united states supreme court. think back in the last year we've had monumental cases of tremendous public import being decided by the united states supreme court. we had the affordable care act. how many people in this country will be impacted by that decision? we then fast forward to march this year impact the quality of life for so many of our citizens. yet what are we able to view with regards to those arguments? the one in march, the only thing we can massive hulgd outside the supreme court waiting in line if they were fortunate enough to be able to secure a ticket to be one of the several hundred people that can go in. instead of seeing lawyering, you know, interaction

one criterion for elevation to the supreme court. there are many who would use this considerable talents and legal acumen to set america back. or brit hume talking about someone who is on the circuit court at the time, is described as brilliant. but the same traits that might get him nominated to the supreme court could also prevent his confirmation. i will show you one of the quotes about poner, from the washington post before getting to the new york times and in an article where he mentioned he had got this information from talking to members of the american bar association panel that rated posner, formerly a professor of law is by all accounts brilliant. according to critics, dangerously brilliant. it is pretty amazing how the judicial confirmation process has changed over time. how much more contentious it has been. most of us focus on the supreme court because that is what is in the news but if anything circuit court nominees and to a lesser extent district court nominees, their confirmation has gotten more contest. to give you a

on the morning of march 18th, the decision was announced from the supreme court. they said justice black said i have an announcement the decision and opinion of the court gideon against -- vindication for 20 years of dissent from -- against brady. they said we were wrong when we designed it and now we are making it right. >> it was complete. not only did this belief in the 14th amendment, the court decide d in gideon's favor. this system which he fought for so long in the justice. the decision was law of the land. equal justice under law. >> when a supreme court decided the gideon case, they really brought light to that phrase. it doesn't matter if you are rich, it doesn't matter if you are poor, you get the same equal chance. >> just look at what happened to gideon. the supreme court didn't set gideon free but it gave him a fair trial with a competent attorney. >> not guilty. >> clarence earl gideon was a free man. the man who won a landmark supreme court case went to live a normal living with a job pumping gas. >> when i read where it says equal justice under law

supreme court. i did want to share one personal anecdote about what scotusblog has meant to me as someone who follows the court very closely. coincidentally this summer june 26 does it have been my 5-year-old daughter was scheduled to have her tonsils out. for those of you who follow know that june 26 happened to be the day that windsor in. the two same-sex marriage cases have come down to the court. my daughter was wheeled back from surgery at 9:59. i was put in this terrible sophie's choice type position of caring for my daughter and refreshinrefreshin g scotusblog and following scotusblog over and over again which i'm sure the nurses had no idea what it is doing. to get in a timely way and the hospital rooms and bedrooms and academic settings so i am grateful for the work you are doing. we are here today as i said and so honored and lucky to have with us on this panel four of our country's most prestigious and keen observers of the united states supreme court. we felt we couldn't let them -- with

supreme court opinions. we got our name mentioned in oral arguments in the supreme court. we've gone on road trips around the country to teach seminars on free press and free speech. a we have never had a panel at the national press club. and we are fixing that today. with our first ever panel on the supreme court, technology and transparency. and we have, as they say on studio at the rockefeller plaza can we have a great show for you today on technology and transparency. we have judges and we have journalists, and we have academics and we have supreme court litigators. and as our moderator and musical guest, we have longtime veteran supreme court reporter tony mauro, and former head of the steering committee of the reporters committee. so i'm here to welcome you and thank you for coming, and to join us in this new chapter in our programming at the reporters committee. and without further ado i will turn it over to tony. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, bruce. my name is tony mauro, and on behalf of the reporters committee i want to welcome you to our discussion. i want

in the best of the rest of the news in the wake of the supreme court's citizens united decision over seven billion dollars was spent by a combination of party's candidates and outside groups just during the two thousand and twelve election and depending on how the court rules in a new case mccutcheon v federal election commission that records spending number could climb even higher during the upcoming twenty sixteen presidential race at stake in the mccutcheon case is a fundamental rule of american campaign finance law that the supreme court affirmed back in one thousand and seventy six buckley versus fillet home campaign contributions donations made by people like you mere wealthy donors like shelley. can be limited on tuesday the republican national committee joined alabama billionaire sean mccutcheon in arguing before the supreme court that the u.s. government should not limit the total amount of money any one person can donate over the course of want to lecture or to talk about the mccutcheon case and its potential ramifications as derek crossman democratic candidate for secretary

oklahoma supreme court hasn't answered yet. so we're not sure what the court's going to do when it does get the answers. whether it's going to go forward with it or not. that is state law requires the drugs to be used according to the fda label. but since the fda label was approved some 7 years ago, i believe it is, science has advanced and there is now an off label use. >> suarez: the supreme court has been ruling on prayer in public institutions for half a century now. but they have to do another one now. >> that's right. this issue goes back to 1983 when that supreme court met in that term upheld legislative prayers in a challenge brought to the nebraska legislature's use of prayers at opening sessions. the case before the court now involves the town of greece, new york, which opens its town board meetings with prayers by local clergies. the lower federal appellate court found that those prayers were predominantly christian in nature and that violated the establishment clause for the first amendment. so the supreme court is g

there is some indication that the supreme court will feel that the town was okay. the lower court found that they favored christianity, applied to stricter level of review to the way that the town's elected. we will have to see the argument >> host: and the name of the case, it is expected to come up next month. democratic caller. hi. >> caller: hello. i wanted to comment on the unlimited amount of money that private parties can donate to political parties. i believe that the real problem is that quite often these political parties are not associated with the ad but really are. and they lie in these deaths. they have no controls because if the candidate that is being lied about comes back and defends himself then the problem is you give validity to the ad. more -- and the -- so they do not defend themselves. you have unlimited money going in to allied. >> host: okay. adam liptak of the new york times. >> guest: the basic theory of the first amendment as a pretext political speech. what the supreme court said in psittacine united is that at least when the spending is

supreme court wasn't more sympathetic to those arguments? >> no, i'm not surprised. california is under incredible change with more resentencing and different kind of resentencing with more leads in county jails than in the prisons with courts having to deal with a split sentence, with prop 36 passed by the voters, where certain types of three strike offenders are entitled to be resentenced. we're looking at a sea change, and criminal justice in california, and the cap is part of that, but we've known about this cap for some time now. >> i know that one issue you've been very involved and concerned about is juvenile justice in california. tell us about why you feel that should be such a high priority. >> a child who is expended in school has three times the chance to have -- once in the juvenile justice system they're out of school, they're disconnected, and they have an even greater chance of going into the adult criminal justice system, and so i have instituted convened groups that we can address the issue sfwloosh when you were first named to the state supreme cour

the 18 years on the supreme court staggered every two years. every president got two -- >> strikes me -- >> very reasonable idea. >> no president gets to pack. >> exactly, if you are elected to two terms, four justices, great idea, never gonna happen. >> because? >> because it is hard to amend the constitution. and there is not the kind of political constituency that would -- that mobilized for such a thing that you would -- you can amend the constitution. you think it is a good idea to get rid of terms. >> the process. >> 3/4 of the state legislature, the house and the senate. >> especially given the toxicity of politics today, what a disaster it would be to martial people. >> it would turn into other issues would get attached to it. that is why, i think life tenure as an idea isn't perfect. if it is easy to amend the constitution, you can imagine the garbage. balanced budgets, flag burns. >> let me ask you the question about obama that i asked about romney. say obama had the opportunity to appoint sotomayor and cagan. >> elena kagan was my cl

with the consequences of the decisions handed down by the supreme court that saved exception alyssum is present in should be of every court room in the country. the ability one dash ability to access the court is important also access by our citizens to the court normally that is a party and night understand that but i take the view of access to be broader. >> with the majesty of the cocked -- the court more generally in terms of a constitutional democracy among equals, to use the term in the first comments, ought inspiring, and i completely agree with that. but the conclusion therefore should not be greater transparency falls at all from the promise and the right question is it a constitutional democracy democracy, what is in the public interest? that is the focus the kinds of concerns lifted up that really it is snippet phobia that has people concerned or a john stuart appearance there reasonable response is grow in extra layer of skin. [laughter] you have life tenure you are a public figure for you have the blessing that compensation cannot be reduced you have a life appointment th

circuit court which is often referred to as the second most important court after the supreme court in the country. if you go back to carter and reagan, you were talking about nominations for, that would take 68, 69 days for circuit courts. under bush i circuit court nominations went to about 102 days, and you can see under clinton it was about 230 days. under bush ii it went to about 360 days, 363 days or so, and then it went down, but it's still above what it was for clinton for obama where it's about 250 days in length. what you find, basically, here is that the most important the court, the more difficult the confirmation battles have been. so district court nominations tend to be relatively shorter, circuit court and then if you look at the d.c. circuit court, it tends to be the longest. under bush ii, the average length of time for bush nominees to be confirmed to the d.c. circuit course was about 702 days. which is quite long. obama's is about 330 days, but it's quite a bit less than half what it was under bush. a lot of that has to do with the fact that during the first two yea

[laughter] >> i talk about it in the book "dynamics," because when the supreme court's announcing a decision, you don't know in advance, and if you're in the court, you don't have any media. so there was a distinct period inside the court where the people thought the law was going one way. the first 12 minutes or so it looked like this was going to be struck down. but then the chief justice said, well, but wait a minute. be we can save it, we will. and i think ilya was pumping your fist, and then you went very sad. [laughter] the law was saved. but there are some lingering implications of this law that i think we should discuss which might be of more interest from a policy perspective. one is the politics of this case. the president has made no secret that he likes to go after the court. if you'll recall the 2010 state of the union which was after citizens united, he made statements critical of the court. he said that they've reversed precedent, opened the floodgates of foreign spending. he said this with the justices sitting 5 feet away, and you remember justice alito was shaking his head l

this is the second time they stopped it. >> what supreme court directive? >> when one of the parties that is one of went to court after tt round their complaint was irregularities in the voter list. but no irregularity was clearly identified. but the supreme court came up with 16 directive and they are out of reach. they are saying that the supreme court has not asked -- restricted them because the two parties are contesting the list. they are saying there are irregularities in the list. >> hold on a second. it's nothing to do with the police, is it? the election list? why should the police intervene in something that is not under their power. >> >> that is the point. we have been able to identify five groups that are restricting or restraining our process. actually the international community says it was not a coup. they wanted us to make a report but said it's not a coup, just like in egypt. in our case it was live on tv and everybody saw it. the international community are here on the ground and they see what is going on. and i'm sure now they understand

we're continuing our discussion of campaign finance laws and the supreme court. with us are dan roberts of the guardian newspaper. jessica levenosn and paul sherman. paul earlier this week we had two former congressmen, one a democrat, one a republican. both had served many terms multiple terms in the house. and one of them said to us when he began in the 1980s the cost of his campaign every two years was about half a million dollars. and when he finally left i in 2009, i think he said, it had raise on it $6 million every two years. that's a lot of money sloshing around in the system. why is so much money necessary? >> well, it's certainly true that the cost of campaigning has gone up and a lot of that has been driven by the increase in television advertising. but if we want to do something about the amount of money in politics we have to look at how much money is demanded in politics. a big part that have is that government has a lot of favors to hand out. the source of the problem is government power, that's what we have to address if we want to cut down on the

supreme court began its new term today.e justices will tackle some constitutionally significant case us on controversial issues. david shuster joins us with more. >> the cases on this particular term not as high profile as previous years. but still the issues will have some reach on some of the greatest post passionate debates of our time. many believe that the political system is broken because of the flow of money into the system. the issue involves individual contribution limits. as it stands individuals are not allowed to give more than $2,600. but they have already ruled in citizens united, saying that limiting contributions is a violation of free speech. the other controversial debate will be over contraception. religious groups say forcing organizations to provide contraception is unconstitutional. >> and there are others that will generate interest too? >> yeah, abortion is on the docket as well. the protests that we see every year in washington, in massachusetts the supreme court is take up a law that has establish

the other position is there have been a couple of cases in the supreme court, the seattle case in particular from the early 1980s where the court said if you take something involving race and issue involving race and you make it especially difficult or impossible basically for that to be solved in the political process that involves deep concerns. justice kennedy who probably will be the swing vote in this was especially concerned in the oral argument in his questions with the seattle case as a precedent for this. so that's the issue in the case. >> joshua thompson, what's your position? >> the position i worked, the 9th circuit court of appeals, on challenges that were identical, saying the political process is trying to be restructured on race based preferences. i agree that it is about structure and how the political process was or was not altered. my belief is that you do not violate the equal protection clause by banning racial preferences. in other words, the equal protection clause was designed as a measure to end racial discrimination and preferential treatment. what proposition 2 an

bush campaign and and also played a role in getting it before the supreme court when when he. appeared to have lost the vote in florida. yeah i was astounded to find this notebook by one of george of you bush's top advisors to me if they go clean help i hope i'm spelling out pronouncing that correctly but go home and says in a book which had a forward by karl rove. which it is a serious you know political confessional testimony and copeland stated that. when in one thousand nine hundred nine ted cruz was on the working with the campaign to elect george w. bush and bush for president and he had the connections to. get go going to meeting with paul why rick who really was one of the top one two or three of the top among the top three architects of the good and why rick was the guy who back in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven i don't want everybody to vote i mean he spotted alec he helped heritage foundation it's amazing the ted cruz was like right at the nexus of this stuff and his mentor was was paul weyrich anywhere yet we had a bruce wilson great work you're doing thank

but it never occurred to me that the supreme court would be striking down contribution limits. we actually could see something that's much worse than we have now. this is a deregulatory court. and in citizens united made it very difficult to regulate what was called independent spending, that's the money that you spend on your own in favor of your candidates. and right now it's the wild west in independent spending. you can spend basically as much as you want often without anyone even knowing that you're spending the money. so what we're looking at now on the contribution side, which is the amount of money you give directly to the candidate for him or her to spend as much as she, in the way she wants, that looks like it's moving into the world of the wild west as well. >> i read some research last evening that in the last election cycle there were 1,219 of the wealthiest donors who reached or almost reached the limit now prevailing. >> yes. well, i will just say those numbers actually could increase for the following reasons. reaching a limit of $123,000 isn't really that influe

that has been broken by the supreme court. it seems that they say - they have the authority. >> very confusing situation. thank you very much, fuwad thowfeek. >> the french president says a 15-year-old school girl deported to kosovo may be allowed back, but without her families. high schools were blockaded in paris while police detained the school while she was on a school trip. a spokesman said she was legally detained but questioned police actions >> translation: given the circumstances, if she makes a request and wants to continue her studies in france, she'll be welcomed - but only her >> speaking in response to the french president's hospital, it was said, "she will not go back to france without her family." >> translation: i thank everyone. it's their job. it's not their job to full out a 15-year-old from a bus in front of classmates. i'm ashamed because they all saw it. i thank france from my heart. one way or another i'll go back to france for sure >> tim friend is live for us in paris. interesting developments there.

supreme court. we look very -- we are encouraged by the argument. we look forward to a decision by the court that will help restore balance in our political system. right now the parties and candidates are limited in what they can accept. the result is donors are being forced to give money to a super packs and not for profits and five to seven that are much less accountable, much less transparent than candid it's in political parties. and by preventing -- by forcing money to go in that direction we have a less help the system. with these aggregate limits we will see more candidates raise money. national parties and state parties will raise more money. and more help the system and our current system of restrictions and forcing money into independent spenders rather than by the candidates and political parties themselves. thank you. >> hi. i have fred wertheimer from democracy 21, one of the attorneys for error i'm the guy supporting the aggregate limits. a couple of important points i would like to make. first of all, justice scalia ask the question a

with a lot of republicans seeing their eye on a supreme court that's been looking much more skeptically at federal regulation of campaign financing and look at the speech. the court has said in the pastness a first amendment speech right. but where this case is different that it's not about spending. it's about a more direct element that in the past, the supreme court has said, requires a little bit more latitude on the part of government because it could give either -- the appearance of corruption or actual corruption. >> one of the things that i understand is that citizens united in a way came up as maybe some second-guessing about it or maybe some hints about what might go forward. can you explain what they were talking about? >> a dichotomy. and this all traces back to a 1976 ruling called buckley versus valeo. the supreme court's look at the post-watergate reforms. in that ruling the court drew the distinction between government's ability to regulate independent expenditures versus contributions. and a couple of the justices said, you know, why do we still have that? do we have --

i'll put him on the supreme court. kid you imagine nominating from another party but along the smartest with the notion they will all do exactly the same thing when they get of the court so it does not matter if i appoint a republican urged democrats to the supreme court. grover cleveland who is a democrat even with the democratic senate nominee republicans to the circuit court position with the exact same reasoning to get the brightest people to be put on the courts regardless of their political views because he did not take the matter but obviously today judges our different in terms of making policy decisions. a lot is at stake of the you put it on the court to. that was not always the case. how can we get an idea how important the judgeships are two other positions? so we look at the nominations through the senate will take at the cabinet positions but you get some idea how the senate use of their positions by how much they fight over who kids to be the nominee that is confirmed to. the bottom line is they want to

how many of the current supreme court justices served as a supreme court law clerk? ef justice roberts and associate justices breier and kagen. they their entire careers were designed about getting to this court and they succeeded. today's winner, roger moore. well i drove grandpa to his speed dating this week, so i should probably get the last roll... yeah but i practiced my bassoon. [ mom ] and i listened. [ brother ] i can do this. [ imitates robot ] everyone deserves ooey, gooey, pillsbury cinnamon rolls. make the weekend pop. >>> health care.gov has now been online for a full week but we still don't know how many consumers have within able to sign up for health care using the onsign exchanges. site users of experienced technical problems. jon stewart spoke with hhs secretary kathleen sebelius last night. >> we're going to do a challenge. i'm going to try and download every movie ever made and you're going to try to sign up for obama care and we'll see which happens first. >> the obama administration is now acknowledging these problems, insisting they are aware of