By Mariah A. Lindsay | Supreme Court term previews typically consist of major or anticipated cases that have the potential to meaningfully impact the state of the union. However, as we discover with the help of Michele Goodwin and Steven Vladeck in the newest episode of On the Issues with Michele Goodwin, the story for this upcoming term can be better understood by examining the Trump administration’s ongoing relationship with the federal courts.
The Court’s previous term was marked by the Trump administration’s use of the emergency docket, which is part of the shadow docket. These are expedited orders handed down by the Court, which are often unsigned and lack supportive legal reasoning. In the last year, the Supreme Court ruled on 140 emergency applications, compared to 55 signed opinions in cases that were decided on the merits—a stark increase from years past.
The Court ruled on several important cases via the emergency docket over the last year, including Trump v. Cook, Trump v. Slaughter, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, and United States v. Shilling. While the shadow docket consists of orders that operate as temporary rules while the case makes its way through the courts, they have the real consequences for the rights of individuals impacted. In many of these cases, the Court offered deference to the Trump administration’s position, despite the possibility of irreparable harm to the parties involved.
In these cases, Vladeck explains, the balance of equities calculus the Court should be using would not reasonably support the outcomes in these unsigned orders. The Court can be seen to favor the Trump administration in the face of “a million Venezuelans who lose their ability to be protected from arrest, detention, and removal from the country. Transgender service members who get kicked out of the military. Federal employees who are getting fired. [T]hose are imposing immediate, and in many cases, not reparable harms, against the government’s, at best, loosely differentiated irreparable harm, and not being able to carry out some of its policies.”
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