The Shadow Docket was a great book for lawyers and people with an interest in the law, although it gets a little detailed at times in ways that were tough for even me to follow. The term "shadow docket" refers to the non-merits docket of the Supreme Court, where decisions are made on an emergency basis, often about whether or not to stay a lower court decision, and are issued without opinions attached. Often, it is unclear how many justices even favored the majority decision, unless we can determine from the number who join a written dissent. In his book, Vladeck traces the history of the Court's power to make decisions not based on the merits of a case, and forcefully argues that such a power is harmful to the health of our republic.
I don't know what happened but all my notes that I took on my Kindle have disappeared. I am so disappointed. I am too depressed about this to write a blog post right now.
Okay I'm back. I'll just sum up for my own edification that emergency rulings are now being used more than ever before, not just for issues would cause "irreparable harm" if not ruled on by the Supreme Court. And the Solicitor Generals, who are Justice Department officials charged with representing the United States, started acting in more partisan ways under the Trump administration. The result is that the court has started "pre-ruling" on cases, like the abortion case in Texas that showed that Roe would be overturned before Whole Women's Health was ruled on the following year. Vladeck says it's harmful because the greater use of the shadow docket enables the Court to set more policy with fewer justifications, as it doesn't generally issue opinions in these cases and goes outside normal rules of procedure.
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