Televise Supreme Court, Specter says

Sen. Arlen Specter (D.,Pa.) says he intends to push Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor to consider televising high-court proceedings when he gets to question her during upcoming confirmation hearings.

“In an electronic era where the public obtains much, if not most, of its news and information from television, there is a strong case in my judgment that the Supreme Court of the United States should have its public proceedings televised just as the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate are televised,” Specter wrote in a letter to Sotomayor, which his office released today.

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Posted by Thomas Fitzgerald @ 1:10 PM Permalink | 3 comments

Comments

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:05 PM, 06/25/2009

Probably C-Span will cover the confirmation hearing, as it did with the last nominees. What gives with Specter in his old age? Did he forget that these are already televised? What gives with the blog on covering PA issues when the budget battle is raging that we are digressing on to something that is already taken care of?

— CleanupPhilly

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:09 PM, 06/25/2009

For example, why did I have to Google News Search "PA state budget" to get an update from Lancaster Online that Specter's numbers are down since his party advocated tax hikes, and that only 29% of voters support tax hikes compared to 44% of voters who want cuts instead? That's the breaking news in the state, not that the high court nominee needs to be covered by C-Span and will be, right? Here's the article with the breaking latest "confidential" in the "cmmwlth:" http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/239221

— CleanupPhilly

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:10 PM, 06/25/2009

If you guys are just going to be the new PR office for Specter, you'll miss that his poll numbers are way down. Maybe it's the shrill tone of the press release covering a non issue that tells you something.

— CleanupPhilly

3 comments

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Commonwealth Confidential gives you regularly updated coverage of the state legislature, the governor and the workings of the state bureaucracy. It is written by correspondents in the Inquirer's Harrisburg bureau, based right in the statehouse, and by the newspaper's far-flung campaign reporters.

Angela Couloumbis (left) joined The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1998, and has covered government and politics in New Jersey, Philadelphia and throughout Pennsylvania, including Gov. Rendell’s 2006 race against former Pittsburgh Steeler Lynn Swann.

Amy Worden (right) joined the Inquirer in 2000 and has covered governors, gubernatorial races, U.S. Senate races and three presidential campaigns. When not covering politics she can be found filing dispatches from disaster scenes or digging into local stories of national import.