The Supreme Court of the United States hears arguments from October through April. Photography and videography are prohibited, and therefore there are few opportunities to watch the proceedings in action. Unless you’re working for the Court, are an attorney arguing the case, or one of the lucky few reporters to sit in the front rows of the visitors’ gallery, you may be out of luck. There are about fifty or so seats open to the public, and the good news is that they’re free, on a first-come, first-served basis. The bad news is that the line is usually at least a few hours long, so unless you’re willing to get there early, you are unlikely to find yourself getting one of those few dozen seats.
Or you can buy one on the black market.
The problem is a simple, Econ 101 one—there’s a scarce supply of seats and a lot more demand. Waiting in line, beyond being terribly boring, isn’t a very good use of most people’s time, including many of the people who truly want to be inside the courthouse when the nine Justices listen to arguments and pepper the attorneys with questions. This is America, though—so someone has turned the wait into cash. In some cases, a lot of cash.
For decades, people in the Beltway have volunteered to sit in line for you, for a fee. In 2005, according to a report by the Washington Post, a man named Kevin Rollins earned $350 for waiting in line on behalf of a law firm. The firm wanted one of its clients, whom it was representing in front of the Court, to be able to listen to the arguments, but the length of the line proved prohibitive. Rollins spent fourteen hours waiting on behalf of the law firm and its client for an hourly rate of $25.
In years since, line standing has become a boom industry in the Beltway. At least two different businesses in the Beltway have entered the market, playing the matchmaker role—for a cut, they’ll find a line-stander for you, and for very long assignments, they’ll find relief placeholders as needed. Prices have shot up to at least $50 an hour, and lines have gotten longer, sometimes requiring line sitters to hang out for two or three days. According to one report, one keep-my-place-in-line assignment for a highly visible case cost the purchaser $6,000. Note that observers do not have an opportunity to influence the case; they are, as the name suggests, merely there to watch the goings-on.
The businesses providing these services also tend to provide similar services for those who wish to attend congressional hearings, much to the chagrin of at least one senator. In 2007, Senator Claire McCaskill from Missouri proposed legislation to ban the practice, but as of this writing, any such efforts have been to no avail.
Next time you’re waiting in line, say, to check out at a store, try to guess how long your wait was. You’re probably overestimating significantly. According to retail researcher and environmental psychologist Paco Underhill, we can only wait in line for about ninety seconds before we lose our perception of time. After that, Underhill observes, we begin to think that significantly more time has passed than actually has—a three-minute wait, for example, feels more like five.