Supreme Court’s liberals see dash of progress on emergency appeals, or ‘shadow docket’

The Supreme Court’s liberal justices keep dissenting, but they also are seeing some progress on one front as the Trump administration floods the court with emergency appeals. 

During recent talks to judges and law students, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson both welcomed their colleagues’ increasing willingness to pen opinions publicly explaining their fast-track decisions. 

“I think it is a good and positive development,” Jackson said during a Thursday lecture at the University of the District of Columbia’s law school.

“Because now, the public and also lower courts, who are charged with responsibility of understanding what the court is doing and applying to a certain degree the court’s principles in future cases,” she continued, “really need some way to go about doing that.” 

“And it was not possible before in a world in which the court was not providing any explanation.” 

The Supreme Court’s emergency docket enables applicants to seek immediate relief from the justices in pending lawsuits. Many are last-ditch attempts to stave off imminent executions, but in recent years, the court has increasingly been asked to weigh in on hot-button issues.

The docket has become so controversial that court watchers can’t even agree on what to call it. Critics often dub it the “shadow docket” for the lack of explanations.

Those fast-moving cases have erupted during the second Trump administration. This week, Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the administration’s 40th emergency application. Each represents a plea to immediately restore an aspect of the president’s agenda. 

The number of emergency applications far exceeds Trump’s predecessors. During the 16 years of the Bush and Obama administrations, those two presidents only brought a combined........

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