Last week, in a span of 24 hours, the Supreme Court issued opinions in cases involving three of the most profound issues facing the country: same-sex marriage, health care reform and housing discrimination.

Despite the intense national focus on these decisions, though, the justices’ announcements of their opinions were witnessed by only a few hundred people in the courtroom. When the same-sex marriage case was argued in late April, many people secured their seats only by sleeping (or paying someone else to sleep) for days on the sidewalk outside the court.

The court releases transcripts and audio recordings of oral arguments, but those don’t give the public the opportunity to see the justices in action, which would deepen Americans’ understanding of how the court functions and of the nine justices themselves.

The solution is simple: televise the court’s proceedings. C-Span has been broadcasting Congress since 1979. Anyone with a wireless connection can watch live hearings in state courts and even some federal appellate courts across the country. While there are concerns that television broadcasts could infringe litigants’ due process rights in trials, that is not an issue in the Supreme Court, where the arguments are about the law itself.