The Three Stooges of the Supreme Court didn't show up tonight.

[Fla Dem]

Alito, Thomas and Scalia. Or Larry, Moe and Curly.

[JimDandy]

1. Wonder how many times members of the SCOTUS

have not been in attendance.

[onenote]

2. Quite often.

Most attend, but there have always been a few that choose not to do so. Here's a quote from one:


“I went to a few of them when I was first on the Court, but I stopped. First, they are political occasions, where I don’t think our attendance is required. But also it comes when I am on a break in Florida. To be honest with you, I’d rather be in Florida than in Washington.”

Who said that: Justice John Paul Stevens, who made it a habit not to attend the SOTU.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/22/100322fa_fact_toobin#ixzz2KkJY4BRN

[JimDandy]

3. Interesting. Well, I'd like to be in Florida in January too. n/t

[defacto7]

4. No, not really.

It's a recent phenomenon.

As I understand it, the SCOTUS has always been in attendance and the protocol is to not gesture clap or make any favored or unfavored remarks, not to stand or to do a standing ovation. That's how it's always been done, until the last few years. The idea was to never show favoritism or make judgments of the presidents statements as a sign of respect for their position as non-partisans, but to show support for the Presidents office and the will of the people who put him there. There is no "rule" but that has been the tradition.

Now the conservative justices are as partisan and manipulative as hell. I don't need to comment any further on that point.

[onenote]

5. depends on what you consider "recent"

A review of SCOTUS attendance at the SOTU produced the following results:

"... justices’ attendance had been falling. From 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson moved the address from the afternoon to the evening, through 1980, the attendance rate was 84 percent. Over the next two decades, the number dropped to 53 percent. Since 2000, the rate has fallen to 32 percent.

In three of those years, only Justice Stephen G. Breyer attended. In 2000, when Justice Breyer stayed home with the flu, no justice was present."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/us/state-of-the-union-can-be-a-trial-for-supreme-court-justices.html?_r=0

The question posed was how many times members of the SCOTUS had skipped the SOTU. I stand by my answer ("quite often&quot although it might have been better to more clearly state that: it is not at all uncommon for one or more members of the Court to skip the SCOTUS, with the frequency in which that occurs increasing in the past ten years or so.

[defacto7]

6. Good research...

I'd accept that! Thanks.