‘Rank nonsense’: Supreme Court Justice Alito fires back at criticism of ‘shadow docket,’ blames media
contentious Texas ban on most abortions and pushed back on criticism of how the justices deal with emergency cases on the “shadow docket.”
His remarks came a day after the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the court’s expedited docket and after a summer in which a majority of the court handed down rulings overturning President Joe Biden’s eviction moratorium, blocking his ability to unwind a Trump immigration policy and allowing the Texas ban to stand.
“In recent weeks, the media has been abuzz with talk about this ‘shadow docket’ and some political figures have joined in,” Alito said at Notre Dame Law School, noting that critics have called attention to late-night rulings that often come without substantial explanation. “This picture is very sinister and threatening, but it is also very misleading.”
More:Senate battles over Supreme Court ‘shadow docket’ after Texas abortion ban
More:Texas abortion ruling renews criticism of Supreme Court’s ‘shadow docket’
Alito noted the court’s emergency docket is not new and said the justices are working with what they’ve been handed: Appeals for temporary injunctive relief that often must be decided rapidly. He slammed the suggestion that the court is timing late-night rulings to limit criticism as “rank nonsense” and framed concerns about the number of cases as “silly.”
particularly among Democrats.
Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law who has been publicly raising concerns about the emergency docket, said it was “refreshing” that Alito chose to speak publicly about the process. But Vladeck also said Alito “cherrypicked and otherwise misstated” some of the criticism of the court’s procedures.
“The concerns that I and others have raised are not that the court is simply issuing more of these orders. Nor is it that they should generally grant or deny relief,” Vladeck said. “It’s that the court is being inconsistent in how it is resolving these cases, inconsistency that is especially problematic as these rulings affect more and more people.”
and confirmed in 2006, blamed much of the criticism of the shadow docket on the media and on politicians. Journalists may “think that we can just dash off an opinion the way they dash off articles,” he said, but the process in fact takes considerably more time. He said late-night rulings often occurbecause of deadlines presented by the case itself.
In the Texas emergency appeal, Alito noted the state’s ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy was set to take effect at midnight on Sept. 1. But in that case, the Supreme Court did not hand down its 5-4 ruling for now allowing the law to remain in effect until just before Sept. 2, nearly 24 hours after it had already taken effect.