Begin with. What do you want to fix in the court . Realized other courts need fixing but fix the court is the only nonpartisan National Organization that adds for greater accountability primarily in the Supreme Court. We believe transparency and account ability means Live Streaming the hearings at the Supreme Court which are currently not livestreamed. Smart policys a change and the Financial Disclosures to be posted online. We want them to explain their conflicts of interest and we want them to follow a code of conduct. Justices are the only judges that dont have to follow a professional code of conduct. We want to convince them to adopt one. Host what led to the founding of your group . Working in d. C. Like a political consultant and i was working on cases where that would reach the Supreme Court. Issues Like Health Care or marriage or voting and a lot of the litigants were in california and they just assumed tune in to. Span cspan was doing this to some extent. That i talkeded to bruce collins. Lots of people and they encouraged me to start it. In broadcast is journalism. An organization dedicated to demystifying the court. About downstream or upstream . The federal judiciary system itself . What does your system think needs to be done . There are some parallels the but there are some differences. Asee the broadcast issue sort of a letter of engagement. They release audio hearings at the end of the day. Ive been able to work with cspan and move that to live audio for some cases. Similarly with all the consternation with confirmation, no matter whose president the last 20 years has always been between 70 and 100 vacancies. They have make sure the resources. What are some of the Cognitive Health resources they have. We want to make sure not only we are advocating for more practicescy but best and ensuring the judges who are working. Ourre their jobs host guest is from fix the court. We welcome your calls and comments. Democrats. 000 202 7488001 republicans. 202 7488002 others. What has been the record of the circuit and the appeals courts and the federal system . The Live Streaming audio started about two years ago. A case that Brett Kavanaugh was actually sitting on. Except it was an Abortion Case about whether undocumented minors should have access to Reproductive Health care when they are in office of Refugee Resettlement custody. Audio fourthe circuit and in the Second Circuit for trump tax cases. The Third Circuit in philadelphia and the seventh circuit in chicago have started doing video on a delayed basis. Court releases audio at the end of the week for its first hearings and we think the court should do at least live audio if not video. Host whats the biggest argument against live video . They are worried it would change things. There a lot of back and forth. Theres a lot of jargon being thrown out and they think maybe the American People cant understand whats going on. I think it would show justices on the right agreeing more often than they dont with justices on the left and seeing that highlevel conversation. American knows what the criminal career act is. We would like to at least believe that one branch of our government is working well and oral argument shows that. Somehow that it would change the nature of whats going on in the court is farcical. Host and its a pretty tightly regulated 30 minutes. He does play a good umpire when trying to get everyone to keep to their time. Its a hot bench. They ask a lot of questions. I think for the American People to see and understand so much changes between on monday and a friday. The idea that we are going to wait until friday to hear the news is kind of ridiculous because thats just not the way news goes anymore. Host you are joining us just as a whole is released on the Supreme Court nationwide confidence finding overall a fairly high amount of confidence especially stacked up against the other branches. Much for the legislative and executive branch and in nots of parties, surprising. A court dominated by republican appointees, 54 confidence in the court. Independent 23 with a high confidence in the Supreme Court. Is your Organization Able to stay out of the partisan arguments of the court . In terms of taking a side where the cooks should be and focused on expanding access and transparency. Think transparency and accountability should be nonpartisan. There are certain cases that touch on what we do. There was the case about whether judges should be soliciting when they run for office and we said there needs to be some sort of walls between the moneywhen judges ask for and they hear cases. There are some cases that touch on what we do. There are some cases in the 60s and 70s about prep access. Tos probably a good idea keep mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices. Justice someone like stevens who served until he was 90. Overall i think that theres a big dr. Case coming up d aca case coming up. When the court is in session and the opinion comes out thats not our time. All the other times we want to demonstrate to the American People that they need to open up host how often do you get into watch a case . About two or three times a year. Always like me at the but i still have to get there at 5 00 a. M. And line up with everybody on the sidewalk. Sometimes i just go to the threeminute line so i can catch up for three minutes. The idea that you have to line up days in advance for a runofthemill case is absurd. Host we will start with lynn in new york. Good morning. Caller in my opinion there are two fundamental things that have to occur to make the Supreme Court balanced institution going into the future. One is they need to expand the number from nine probably past 11 to 13. So you can have a situation where a president might even not have to have the opportunity to nominate three. Maybe even four. But it wouldnt be the primary impetus to vote for a president that you expect them to be able to move the court. Thatther even the fact when the constitution was written people werent living that long, perhaps a 26 year limit which they could be renominated for. I justice two years will be retired and the new one who is not renominated is going to be nominated. Depoliticize this thing entirely. Host i will let you go there. Marketto point out the poll shows that 8 strongly favor increasing the number of justices. Or strongly3 favor favor increasing the number of Supreme Court justices. End2 said they wanted to life tenure. I like the math of the caller. Also lives in new york which is where im from. We want to do since there are , niney nine justices times two is 18. 18 is also nine house terms, three senate terms. That would regularize the appointment process. You would do additionally is if for some reason there was some sort of tragedy you could bring justices out of retirement so you wouldnt have to have a president who had more nominees per term. We dont have these apocalyptic showdowns when a vacancy occurs. Host how do you do that if you want to increase the number of appointees . Not be deemed as entirely a political move by either the president or the senate . The bestoposal takes from the left and the right there was a paper a few years ago written by the founder of the Federalist Society that called for 18 year term limits. It was coauthored by the liberal constitution society. I was growing up justices served 18 years on average. Now they are serving closer to 28 or 30. Host it has changed that much . Yes. The idea that we have individuals having so much Power Holding onto their positions so long is very undemocratic. Lets hear from caldwell, idaho. On the independent line. Caller california had a vote called proposition 8 and it was overturned by i think one judge. Millions of people voted for that direction and then youve got three women on the Supreme Court, not a single one of them thinks marriage is between a man and woman. So ill never be able to figure out how these people are able to even obtain a position you are supposed to be judging things. So thats my comment. Question. Was a tough you had a vote in california that made samesex marriage not illegal and it was overturned by a judge in california. Ultimately the case was decided by the Supreme Court. Thats why we want to have trust in the Supreme Court but is ultimately deciding these fundamental questions. Is a little weird that these people are judging our rights. Overall when these things happen and california has all these crazy propositions its important to have a Supreme Court that we can trust so when the opinion comes out we can have faith that there job is done without bias. Host on the democrat line in maryland. Caller good morning. Two quick questions. Clarence thomass wife was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to campaign against the Affordable Care act. That money certainly made its way into her household. Did notand not only recuse himself but voted the way she wanted him to vote. Is that not Clarence Thomas being bought and paid for and shouldnt he be thrown off the court . Why shouldnt he at some point in time be off the court . The only way to remove a justice is through impeachment and removal similar to the way a president would be removed. Currently there is no recourse or reprimand for inexcusable saveiors that you refer to a high bar of impeachment. Right now thats being debated in democratic and republican circles. There is this judicial misconduct act for lower court judges. , they cane censured undergo mandatory sensitivity training. Process where an investigation occurs. Year frustration that there are ethical lapses and more needs to be done to ensure the justices are held accountable. Just talking about it, realizing that the money paid to jenny thomas for example, we didnt even know about that publicly for several years after it happened. Ensuring those disclosures are posted online in a timely fashion. I understand your frustration. A suprememost we see Court Justice is when they speak before a group in times that the court generally is not in session. Thinkour organization they should have to publicize who paid for that speech . Absolutely. I think by and large these are happening at universities. Maybe its tied to a book tour Something Like that. Theres no internal Ethics Office at the Supreme Court. There is supposedly one or two guys. Mechanism for ensuring that when Justice Kagan says shes traveling to the university of colorado to speak golaw school she didnt also on a fancy ski trip with some donor who might care about whats going on at the court next week. I feel like theres gaps in the reporting. They are required to report some object trips but not the amount. Just that they were reinforced for their travel, food and lodging. I was working on a bill that would require the justices to have the same exacting reporting standards that officials have in terms of making it a timely report so we know within a few days of the trip. Host gabe roth is our guest. He is with fix the court, their executive director. This is kurt in new jersey. Thats the independent line. Go ahead. Caller thanks for your time. Bear with me. Im uneducated but very opinionated. I really enjoyed listening to you talk about the court. See your enthusiasm what would be the most important thing if you could do right now to straighten out the Supreme Court to not have sideshows in the news of what would that be. Thank you. A great question. I think the most important thing right now would be for the a code ofo have conduct. Currently there is something fored a code of conduct u. S. Judges. At some point in time has worked through the American Bar Association and then state Supreme Court adopted this code of conduct. There are certain statutes that say if im judge alito and my sister has a case, i have to recuse myself. Aief Justice Roberts life as legal recruiter. Thats in the law. Thats something because back to common law, british law. The fact that there are nine justices sitting over here who believe they are above a professional conduct code on its very easy for them to adopt one. It would not just be whether we can hold it to them. To have theolically that they are not going to hear cases in which they appear to have bias. They are not going to engage in political activities. Host it was on one of those Supreme Court trips that led to the opening of the seat held open in 2016. A couple of affect points from the survey. Aboutsk people confirmation hearings during an Election Year. The people surveyed said it was the wrong thing to do. In terms of the senate not holding a hearing that year. About holding a confirmation hearing during this election hearing. 69 that the senate should hold confirmation hearings if a vacancy happens on the Supreme Court. What do you think the senate would do . Thats a tough question. Currently the senate has the right to do whatever it wants. Fix the court and i look at it from a sort of different perspective. If you have an 18 year term and justices are rotating on and off every 18 years here going to of seniorch customers. You also had oconnor and stevens. So you have individuals to fill that ninth seat. Have individuals who are confirmed Supreme Court justices who can fill the ninth seat. Whether or not the senate decides to hold confirmation hearings in an Election Year we need to take a step back and say what do we need to do to ensure the continued success and operation of the court. Withourt cant operate eight. Its probably better with nine. Lets ensure that individuals could be pulled back into the service if there are other future shenanigans in the senate. Host this is tony in new jersey on the independent line. Caller i was wondering about expanding the courtside. I guess mayor pete has proposed stuff about having different ways other than Senate Approval to nominate or get judges in. What are your thoughts on that . We just posted something yesterday about the 555 plan where you would have five democrats on the court, five republicans and then the 10 would come together to appoint five other justices. I dont particularly like the plan. I the larger plan, the idea that we are going to say these justices are republicans. These are democrats. Weve never done that in u. S. History. Politics shouldnt predominate jurisprudence. That we are just blatantly saying, you are a democrat, you are a republican. And youre going to find five lawyers in america who are independent enough to be those five in the middle to make it to 15 . I like the idea generally that the democratic field in 2020 the republican field in 2016 both fields were coming up with Creative Ideas to fix the broken confirmation process and the problem of nterminal tenures. Endthese folks wanted to tenures at the Supreme Court. You can check which candidates on the democratic side have similar proposals. I like the idea that he was thinking hard about ways to remove the politicization of the court this proposal to me i think would make it worse. We take your comments on text as well. Ell us where your texting from robert says we have enough justices on the Supreme Court already. Kevin is in denver on the democrat line. Good morning. Caller morning. Mcconnell saying in an interview march 20, 2016 during the Merrick Garland hearings that the republican would not consider any nominee not approved. By the nra. I thought that was so staggering. Nd so the question that i have i think it was also the National Federation of independent business. Of the special Interest Groups that arent supposed to be part of that process as i understand the constitution. Its advise and consent by the senate. And the second question i have, Clarence Thomas is extremely politically active in rightwing politics along with his wife. Hes actually ruling on and doesnt recuse himself. But hes a donor, a speaker and an activist. Host ok. We kind of talked about Clarence Thomas. To my knowledge he hasnt donated since hes been on the court. The Mitch Mcconnell question, it was that very afternoon that scalia died that the republicans said they werent going to have a hearing or vote to on the obama nominee. Thats not great. Thats why we need to have mechanisms in place that the continuing function of the court , Justice Souter is still hearing cases on the lower court. When you are Supreme Court justice you have the ability to cases asuit and hear long as you get permission from the chief judge of that court the idea that once you are done at the Supreme Court after 18 , one of the criticisms is you are done with your Public Service thats not true. Having these elder statesmen and women hearing those cases. Host you brought up your efforts and cspans efforts over the years. You can go on our website and read the history of working with the court. Just search cameras in the court at cspan. What do you think its going to take . Think its going to take a generational shift. Im 37 and grew up with the ubiquity of cameras. The bench liken alito who shows up with his ipad to the hearing, kagan, sotomayor. When they arelks, getting towards the majority. Once Justice Ginsburg whose 86, Clarence Thomas is in his 70s. Once those older folks leave the court i think they will be a little more open to it. There is a website ready to go that can do live audio. Make it happen. I think that will be a good start and we will get to cameras a few years after that. In independence, missouri. Caller im glad you are having the court to this show. The court has become way too political. Handing down such damaging decisions as citizens united. Corporation ever be an individual . Its not a human being. And i think gerrymandering and those things that came down on the wrong side, we should get rid of all gerrymandering and they didnt do that either. I think our Supreme Court has become way too political. We should take the selection process. Judges randomly decide who the next Supreme Court justice to be because who better to pick a justice than people who are already in the business of maintaining our constitutional rights. Kind of like a cardinals picking the pope. Thats not a bad idea. Am all in favor of having conversation that talks creatively about the Supreme Court selection process. I definitely think thats a worthy idea. Start by ensuring that justices are on and off the bench. We dont want this to wreak of feudalism. The fact that we are having serious conversations about the tenure of the Supreme Court. It has taken a while. Something the professors have been talking about for 20 years. Its not tied to kavanaugh or gorsuch or garland or scalia. This is finally in the mainstream but its been going on for a long time. I think its a positive for americans to be thinking about what they want their Supreme Court to look like. Host the fbi current director testifies about threats. 40th anniversary of the iranian hostage crisis. Then on cspan3, American History tv. A discussion about sandra day oconnor. The first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up wednesday morning, well talk about the impeachment brookings study senior fellow and a discussion on President Trumps impact on the federal judiciary. Cspans washington journal live at 7 00 p. M. 7 00 a. M. Eastern. Join the discussion. Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary committee is holding a hearing on reauthorizing the usa bans the bookich collection of private records. The 2020 Campaign Coverage continues as President Trump hold a Campaign Rally in monroe, louisiana. You can watch his comments live at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Our cspan 2020 campaign bus team is traveling across the country visiting key battleground states it asking voters what issues they want president ial candidates to address during the campaign. Something i want the president ial candidate to address is gun violence. I dont think there is one clearcut answer. We need to initiate that discussion in discovering what options are available to present prevent these disasters from happening. My question is how are you going to combat the rising prices on drugs and health care . Ask an issue that is important to me is focusing on fixing our criminal justice system. How can we rehabilitate our offenders, how can we support a positive relationship between the community and Law Enforcement . How can we fix our message incarceration rates . Arecan we help those who impacted by the heroin epidemic . How can we focus on helping those in poverty . The school to prison pipeline is also important to focus on. How can we help our juveniles who find themselves in delinquency . A womans right to autonomy is important to me. This is not currently being protected by the u. S. Government. It should be. Voices from the campaign trail. An International Climate change report warns that temperature change the Environmental EnergyStudy Institute posted a briefing on capitol hill. They explained that the Climate Change report, now the u. S. Will be affected. We will go ahead and get started. The Environmental EnergyStudy Institute thank you for joining us back i hope everybody got all the candy. Thank you for joining us this morning we have a wonderful