Democrats To Probe Secretive 'Shadow Docket' Following Supreme Court Texas Abortion Ruling
HuffPost
The conservative Supreme Court majority has relied on emergency appeals with increasing frequency to issue rulings, with no public deliberation or notice.
Senate Democrats will soon hold a hearing examining this week’s emergency Supreme Court ruling that declined to block an extreme anti-abortion law in Texas. The hearing, to be conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming weeks, will probe the so-called “shadow docket” of emergency appeals the Supreme Court has relied on with increasing frequency to issue rulings, often of massive consequence, with little public deliberation or notice. An analysis conducted by Reuters found that the court’s emergency appeals rulings over the past year often favored religious groups and Donald Trump’s administration. The unsigned 5-4 ruling permitting Texas’ new abortion restrictions to go into effect was handed down shortly after midnight on Wednesday. It offered no extended reasoning for the decision; its length was only a few paragraphs. The court also held no public arguments on the matter, as it typically does for most cases.More Related News