BY PAUL BARTON
Enquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Steve Chabot's legislation to open the federal courts to television cameras awaited Senate consideration Friday, after clearing the House as part of a comprehensive judicial reform bill.
Mr. Chabot and Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., were the principal sponsors of a measure that would give all federal judges the option of allowing television cameras, radio broadcast and still photography equipment into their courts.
The judicial reform bill passed Thursday night.
"Our Founding Fathers recognized that a thriving democracy depends on a well informed public, and that the public needs to see how an important branch of the federal government works, or in some cases doesn't work," Mr. Chabot said.
Currently, federal court rules, as adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States, prohibit cameras, although exceptions have been allowed in some federal judicial circuits, Mr. Chabot's staff said.
If Mr. Chabot's bill were to become law, any federal judge wanting to allow cameras would no longer be restricted by federal court rules.
Since Mr. Chabot's legislation was first introduced last year, reaction among judges has been mixed, his staff said.
This was the first time that the U.S. House had voted to allow television coverage.
Mr. Chabot will now be lobbying Senate members to take up the idea.
"The federal courts play a very important part in our government and federal judges serve for life," Mr. Chabot said. "We need to encourage deeper understanding and further national discussion of the proper, and properly limited, role of federal judges."
