A group of congressional Democrats is urging Chief Justice John Roberts to make immediately available an audio recording of next month’s arguments in the case challenging President Trump’s travel ban.
The justices will hear arguments in the case April 25, and the five House Democrats believe the Supreme Court should make audio available on its website upon their conclusion.
“Giving the American people direct and timely access to this case means that more citizens will have the opportunity to experience firsthand the care with which the court considers issues that affect the country and its public discourse,” Reps. Mike Quigley of Illinois, Jerrold Nadler of New York, Hank Johnson of Georgia, Zoe Lofgren of California, and Gerry Connolly of Virginia wrote in their letter to Roberts.
The Supreme Court announced in January it would consider a challenge to the third version of Trump’s executive order restricting travel to the U.S. for foreign nationals from eight countries, including six Muslim-majority countries.
The high court releases transcripts of oral arguments hours after they conclude but does not make audio recordings available to the public until the end of each argument week.
Given the heightened public interest of cases addressing Trump’s travel executive orders — there have been three versions, though previous iterations were struck down — federal appeals courts hearing challenges to the bans have livestreamed the arguments.
In February 2017, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals livestreamed audio of arguments in a case challenging the first version of Trump’s executive order, drawing 2.6 million listeners.
Then, in May, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals livestreamed audio in a second travel ban case. The Richmond-based court also granted C-SPAN access to broadcast an audio stream of oral arguments in a case challenging the third version of the executive order in December.
