It may be time to ask whether the tradition of limited seating for the public at high-profile congressional hearings should continue.
In the first two days of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings the U.S. Capitol Police arrested 143 protesters for disrupting proceedings; Time magazine described the screaming and removal of protesters as “near constant.” For what it’s worth, three doctors who attended the hearing claim they witnessed protesters being paid in cash to cause trouble in the hearing.
Even some Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee were displeased with the constant interruptions. California senator Dianne Feinstein told Kavanaugh, “I’m sorry for the circumstances, but we’ll get through it.”
Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse told NPR,
I think that the average independent voter — the labor family that voted for Trump last time but is now reconsidering — people like that don’t think that screaming in a hearing room is a particularly effective strategy or a signal of a party that they much want to belong to. So I think it’s been not helpful to any cause that I can see.
At one point the Senate Judiciary Committee reduced the number of seats available to the public in half, and then restored it to the previous total. For one stretch, Capitol Police stopped allowing members of the public inside. Unsurprisingly, the interruptions stopped during that period.
Freedom of speech does permit a heckler’s veto; federal law gives U.S. Capitol Police the authority to charge disruptive protesters with unlawful entry or disorderly conduct. (If they enter a congressional office and do not leave when asked by staff, protesters can be charged with unlawful entry.) Barring public seating would not end public scrutiny of the proceedings, as they are nationally televised.
A better society would not need to contemplate barring members of the public from congressional hearings. But far too many members of the public are choosing to violate the law.