The U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday that it would not allow television cameras into court to broadcast arguments on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — President Obama’s health care law — on March 26-28.
However, “because of the extraordinary public interest in those cases,” the court agreed to expedite the release of the audio recordings and transcripts of the day’s proceedings.
“The Court will post the audio recordings and unofficial transcripts as soon as the digital files are available for uploading to the website,” the court said in a statement. “The audio recordings and transcripts of the March 26-28 morning sessions should be available no later than 2 p.m. The recording and transcript of the March 28 afternoon session should be available no later than 4 p.m.”
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C-SPAN, which had requested permission to cover the arguments live on television, said it would “provide same-day airing of these arguments on C-SPAN3, C-SPAN Radio and C-SPAN.org as soon as they are released.”
Nevertheless, the company said it was “disappointed that the court has rejected C-SPAN’s request for TV camera coverage of the oral arguments in this landmark case. We continue to believe allowing video coverage of Supreme Court oral arguments is in the public’s best interest.”
Congress has tried to cajole the court into allowing cameras so as to provide more transparency on how it decides issues that effect citizens. The court has consistently rejected the inclusion of cameras, arguing that they would fundamentally alter the behavior of both the arguing attorneys and the justices themselves.