The Court's building is a beautiful edifice of white marble. The Hall of Justice at the entrance, with its marble busts of the former Chief Justices and soaring 43 foot ceilings, makes quite an impression. The building was finished in 1933; Congress appropriated $9.5 million for the building and the project came in under budget, with $95,000 left over. That year, the justices used the extra cash for the nation's biggest kegger.
I had my picture made next to the white marble bust of Roger Taney, my nominee for most-bigoted and lazy Supreme Court judge (bigoted because he wrote the Dred Scott decision; lazy because he introduced the idea that the Chief Justice need not write all the opinions of the Court).
I learned that all of the Court was made of materials in the United States. So you've got marble from Alabama and wood paneling from Vermont. But the actual courtroom is made exclusively of materials from foreign nations. Nothing made-in-America in that room. And I found myself wondering: how does Justice Scalia feel about that?Downstairs was a display of portraits of some of the lesser-known justices. Then I saw a sign for the Supreme Court ATM and vending machines.
Now I have to say that rather amused me, the idea that the nine justices occasionally scare up some quarters in the pockets of their robes and then shuffle downstairs to score a cold soda. So I peaked around the corner to find a bust of Justice Brandeis facing the vending machines.
Brandeis was a remarkable judge, so I'm not exactly sure why he got the job of guarding the machines. But here is the most pressing question, as yet unanswered: was he a Coke or Pepsi man?
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