https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/senate-democrats-introduce-bill-to-make-us-supreme-court-more-transparent/
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with more than a dozen other Senate Democrats, introduced a
bill on Wednesday requiring U.S. Supreme Court justices to provide written explanations and record votes for decisions in their emergency docket, also known as the
shadow docket. “Our Shadow Docket Sunlight Act would open these decisions to greater public view and scrutiny— literally bringing light and accountability to outcomes of important cases now handed down in peremptory silence,” Blumenthal
said in a statement.
The court’s shadow docket includes requests for immediate action from the court and primarily consists of requests to pause a lower court’s order, which voids a decision in a case while an appeal is ongoing. These cases require extraordinary circumstances and proof that people would suffer “irreparable harm” if the ruling was left in place. The justices have previously utilized the shadow docket to make decisions on
COVID-19 policies,
abortion access,
immigration and
redistricting.
In one of the most recent cases on the shadow docket, the Court
granted requests from Louisiana, Black voters and civil rights organizations to allow the state’s new congressional map to remain in place while they considered an appeal over a lower court ruling that struck it down. Unlike the normal appeals process, cases that go through the Court’s shadow docket don’t have a full briefing and oral argument. The decisions are usually handed down in just a few days or weeks, released in short written orders with little to no reasoning — often not saying which justices supported or opposed it.
Blumenthal, a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, introduced the Shadow Docket Sunlight Act to try to increase transparency within the nation’s highest court. This bill is co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Il.) and others including Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). This bill requires justices to provide a written explanation and indication of how each voted for decisions on the shadow docket. It also requires the Federal Judicial Center to report the Supreme Court’s compliance with the law to Congress each year.
snip
= new reply since forum marked as read