RockyRoadTravel Posted November 24, 2025 Posted November 24, 2025 The shadow docket, historically, was rarely used. However since 2017, the current extremist majority of the Supreme Court has been using the shadow docket as a means of issuing emergency stays of lower-court rulings at the behest of the Incompetent-in-Chief's Justice Department. The shadow docket has been rightly criticized for it's lack of transparency or accountability. These are unsigned rulings where no oral arguments have been heard and little is any legal basis for the decision is provided. Ruling without arguments or precedents. My question is given the lack of transparency, the lack of accountability, the lack of any provision of a legal reasoning and the clear political bias of the current right-wing extremism of the Court's majority, what's to prevent this Court's majority to rule in a completely opposite way with the same set of circumstances when a non-rightwing-extremist Administration is back in the White House. For example, with shadow docket overruling Humphrey’s Executor, the Supreme Court allowed for the firing of federal agencies' leadership without a rationale, even though this countered 100 years of legal precedent regarding the separation of powers. Given a sane Administration in the White House after 2028, would this extremist Supreme Court majority maintain these shadow docket rulings or would decide to flip their unexplained unsigned decisions and run interference for the extreme right? Quote
Members stevenkesslar Posted November 24, 2025 Members Posted November 24, 2025 1 hour ago, RockyRoadTravel said: The shadow docket, historically, was rarely used. However since 2017, the current extremist majority of the Supreme Court has been using the shadow docket as a means of issuing emergency stays of lower-court rulings at the behest of the Incompetent-in-Chief's Justice Department. The shadow docket has been rightly criticized for it's lack of transparency or accountability. These are unsigned rulings where no oral arguments have been heard and little is any legal basis for the decision is provided. Ruling without arguments or precedents. My question is given the lack of transparency, the lack of accountability, the lack of any provision of a legal reasoning and the clear political bias of the current right-wing extremism of the Court's majority, what's to prevent this Court's majority to rule in a completely opposite way with the same set of circumstances when a non-rightwing-extremist Administration is back in the White House. For example, with shadow docket overruling Humphrey’s Executor, the Supreme Court allowed for the firing of federal agencies' leadership without a rationale, even though this countered 100 years of legal precedent regarding the separation of powers. Given a sane Administration in the White House after 2028, would this extremist Supreme Court majority maintain these shadow docket rulings or would decide to flip their unexplained unsigned decisions and run interference for the extreme right? Great question. Who the heel knows? I'm surprised that in this Gallup poll it is is still around 50/50 favorable. I have seen other polls that show SCOTUS as net unfavorable. Clearly right now conservatives are lovin it. And Democrats don't. We'll see if they can manage to maintain any sense of balance. I was worried that do to same sex marriage what they did to abortion. They haven't. At least not yet. Since Democrats basically have no power in the executive and legislative branches, and SCOTUS is seeming more and more like a Trump rubber stamp, it is definitely setting the stage for a reaction back toward Democrats. That reaction has clearly already started. If and when we have Democrats in charge again, it would not surprise me to see a right wing SCOTUS resist what Democrats can do. It already happened under Biden - like student loan forgiveness. Quote
RockyRoadTravel Posted November 24, 2025 Author Posted November 24, 2025 2 hours ago, stevenkesslar said: Great question. Who the heel knows? I'm surprised that in this Gallup poll it is is still around 50/50 favorable. I have seen other polls that show SCOTUS as net unfavorable. Clearly right now conservatives are lovin it. And Democrats don't. We'll see if they can manage to maintain any sense of balance. I was worried that do to same sex marriage what they did to abortion. They haven't. At least not yet. Since Democrats basically have no power in the executive and legislative branches, and SCOTUS is seeming more and more like a Trump rubber stamp, it is definitely setting the stage for a reaction back toward Democrats. That reaction has clearly already started. If and when we have Democrats in charge again, it would not surprise me to see a right wing SCOTUS resist what Democrats can do. It already happened under Biden - like student loan forgiveness. I don't think I've pointed out my question adequately. This isn't about the the Supreme Court striking down progressive legislation. They're right-wing extremists, no one is expecting them to support civil rights, voting rights or small 'd' democracy. This is about this group of extremist activist justices weaponizing the shadow docket - seldom used before 2017 - to issue quick anonymous rulings that lack any explanation, legal precedent or reasoning backing them up. Presented with the exact same set of circumstances under a Republican or a Democratic President and/or Congress with the shadow docket they could issue two separate politic decisions depending on who's in power. The shadow docket decisions are more political decisions and less about the rule of law and the Constitution. Quote
RockyRoadTravel Posted June 30 Author Posted June 30 Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann fixed on a single word in Chief Justice John Roberts' majority opinion and said it left him deeply unsettled. Reacting on air to Monday's 6-3 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter, which overturned 91 years of precedent and lets the president fire members of independent agencies without cause, Weissmann said the decision extends the theory of expansive presidential power Roberts laid out in the Trump v. United States immunity case. This time, he said, the chief justice leaned on the "vitality" and "secrecy" of the executive branch. "It's hard to stress enough for people the ramifications of this decision," he told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on her show, "Deadline: White House." Weissmann pointed to Roberts' language that indicates his views on sweeping presidential power. "Saying that it's necessary, what they ruled today, that it's necessary to have the vitality, and in a word, I found chilling, the secrecy of the executive branch. That was a word that was not in the immunity decision, and should think about that. He said the ruling "unleashes political patronage" and called it "a very ahistoric decision" with "very, very long coattails." "You do not want a Republican president to come in and fire every Democrat, and you do not want every Democratic president to come in and fire every Republican," he said. "You want career people in place with experience, who are supposed to be apolitical regardless of party." The decision drew a scathing dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote that the court handed Trump a power unknown even to the English Crown. Weissmann invoked Justice Robert Jackson, who returned from prosecuting Nazis at Nuremberg, to caution against expanding presidential power, and said the founders feared this outcome. "We did not want to, and do not want to, have a king in the White House," he said. He also called the majority's appeal to originalism "laughable," citing the same-day decision sparing the Federal Reserve as proof of "a result-oriented court." Quote
RockyRoadTravel Posted July 12 Author Posted July 12 Unleashing a firehose of dark money into America politics, even more than it is now, this extremist right-wing court has legislated from the bench that there are no limits to campaign donations. An extremist court that is for, by and about the interests of billionaires. Quote
Members Suckrates Posted July 12 Members Posted July 12 5 hours ago, RockyRoadTravel said: Unleashing a firehose of dark money into America politics, even more than it is now, this extremist right-wing court has legislated from the bench that there are no limits to campaign donations. An extremist court that is for, by and about the interests of billionaires. Interesting that SCOTUS comes to THAT decision right as Musk attains TRILLIONAIRE status ? They KNOW where Musk will likely spend his moolah ! And as the old saying goes, "if you cant WIN elections......BUY them ! " Quote
