In 2019, I Proposed that SCOTUS Should Use a Lottery To Distribute Tickets. In 2024, SCOTUS Proposes Pilot Lottery Program.
For more than a decade, I have been complaining about how the Court distributes tickets. There are paid line waiters, line cutters, and general chaos when there are disagreements. In November 2019, I offered a series of recommendations of how the process could be improved. One of my ideas was to adopt a lottery:
Attorneys should be able to enter a lottery to obtain a ticket for a specific argument date. There should be a random drawing. Depending on demand, attorneys could request one argument per year, or one argument per sitting. Ideally, the requests should be made after the calendar for a given sitting has been announced. (It does not make sense to reserve a session before you know what case will be argued.) The requests should be made online through a system that verifies an attorney is in good standing. Confirmation can be sent by email.
Attorneys who lose the lottery, or do not make a timely request, can still show up the same day and wait on the bar line. They would be able to listen to the arguments from the lawyer’s lounge. In the event that a lottery winner does not show up, one of the attorneys from the lounge can be upgraded to the chamber.
This process would eliminate most of the unfairness of waiting outside, including line-cutting. The lottery would also ensure that people do not travel at great expense for an argument they cannot attend in person.
If the lottery process is successful for members of the bar, it should be extended to the general public. It will be more difficult to implement a lottery for members of the general public, who are not vetted. But the process would be feasible. Adding a degree of randomness would ensure that people do not have to wait in the cold and rain for days outside the Court. Moreover, a lottery would ensure that a range of people from different backgrounds with different interests can attend–not just those who have the means to camp out for days on First Street.
In May 2020, Amy Howe promoted my idea at SCOTUSBlog:
The court has traditionally been reluctant to get involved in policing the public line: Officers normally don’t do much beyond handing out tickets at around 7:30 a.m. But other small steps by the officers could help to increase the perception of fairness – for example, handing out
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