Opinion: Sotomayor hearings: Specter pushes to televise the Supreme Court
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Sen. Arlen Specter bounced from topic to topic during his first day of questioning Sonia Sotomayor and he continued that technique this morning.
He didn’t cut her off in midsentence as he did Wednesday, but Specter quickly touched on environmental law, separation of powers (taking a swipe at Bush administration antiterrorism efforts in the process) and the use of television in courtrooms.
The Pennsylvania Democrat clearly thinks that televising Supreme Court proceedings would be a good thing. He entered into the record a survey by CSPAN which he said found that 61% of those questioned favored giving the justices some screen time.
The judge told Specter that her two experiences with televised proceedings had been good ones. And although she didn’t promise to lobby the court on the issue (as Specter suggested), she did say she would share her experiences with her future colleagues if approved.
Specter, who was the Judiciary Committee’s chairman when he was still a Republican, wasn’t prepared to say how he’d vote on Sotomayor’s nomination, but he did say she had done “an outstanding job as a witness.”
-- Steve Padilla
