An article in a recent edition of the San Francisco Chronicle explained how "The Supreme Court’s ‘Shadow Docket’ Is Empowering Trump’s Agenda." The article is worth reading, but I am betting that non-subscribers probably won't be able to use that link to read the article. Thinking that is likely to be the case, here's the main point:
While federal trial courts have dealt Trump setback after setback, his administration has routinely requested that the Supreme Court step in to provide emergency relief from those rulings. These cases are what have come to be known as the “shadow docket.”
Many of the Supreme Court decisions made on the "shadow docket" have permitted the president to do things that the lower courts have found to be either illegal or unconstitutional (or both). But as is noted in the article, "the shadow docket doesn’t involve a final decision on any issues — it merely allows matters to proceed until the case is fully briefed and argued in the future."
In other words, the "shadow docket" produces only "temporary" decisions. They are, in a very real way, a technique used by the Supreme Court to "stall for time." Really, it should be the Congress, not the Court, that takes prompt and effective action when the president directs federal employees to something that is either directly contrary to existing law, or when the president tells federal agencies to do something that can only be authorized by Congress - and hasn't been. Of course, the Congress isn't doing that. The "shadow docket" decisions by the Court are - giving the Court the benefit of the doubt - a way to allow Congress to do its job, in the face of illegitimate activity by the Executive - and then the Congress isn't, in fact, doing what our laws and the Constitution require.
Furthermore, just to make it all perfectly clear, instead of maintaining the "status quo ante," the Supreme Court has been using the "shadow docket" to permit Trump's agenda to go forward, so "federal workers lose their jobs, migrants get sent to countries where they are in danger and Social Security records — yours and mine — fall into the hands of inexperienced 20-something Elon Musk groupies who made up much of the DOGE workforce."
The Supreme Court's "stall," by way of the "shadow docket," is letting our current president act like HE is the one who gets to decide everything. That isn't the way our system is set up to work. Shame on the Court - for sure - but shame on Congress, too!
And what about those people who tell the Congress what to do (at least when our system of government is operating as it is supposed do, as is set out in the Constitution)?
Well, that would be US! Shame on us if we sit back and watch, and don't take effective action to countermand illegal and unconstitutional governmental actions, as prescribed by our current president.
Let's all make sure we exercise our authority next year, to insist upon a Congress that actually does what WE want! A Congress that will insist that the Executive only does what is authorized by law, and that is consistent with Constitutional limitations on executive power.
Think we might manage that? No one to blame but ourselves, if we don't.
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