As the October 2025 Term officially begins, it's worth taking a moment to highlight the record-setting—and revealing—final statistics for how the justices handled emergency applications during OT2024.
Given the Emergency Docket is nearly half the work of the court, it appears this court primarily wishes to create a body of law that is unexplained, yet allows it to do whatever it wants, without the inconvenient need to explain facts and law. This is all about ideology, not law and is truly troubling.
In your trivia today, you state "But it turns out, like so much else about the Court and its work, that’s entirely up to Congress". I have been thinking a lot about the "Unitary Executive Theory" (for obvious reasons). It seems to be that this statement can and should be applied in the same way to the relationship between Congress and the Executive. If the Judiciary is its own branch (i.e., Article III) and Congress can determine the contours of how that branch operates, then it should have similar power to determine the contours and limitations on the Executive branch.
I have seen tv episodes recently (with streaming, it could have been an old show) very similar to the Venezuelan father living in Spain enacting vengeance on the mother in America (or anywhere) just because he wants the child (likely for his own machismo pride and not out of a greater love for or safety reasons). It might have been blue bloods or the equalizer or both. These manufactured cases getting up to the supreme criminals of the US are outrageous just so they can fulfill the nazi opus dei nationalist manifesto. I’m appalled the sadist six rate the (low) approval rating they are getting.
While Democrats, should they retake Congress, cannot stop the Supreme Court from meeting, they can take away or limit its appellate power to stop the Supreme Court from overruling well reasoned decisions from lower courts.
To be a little bit fair to the Court, the record-setting number of emergency applications is due at least in some measure to the fact that the Trump Administration has filed more "emergency" appeals than than the COMBINED number filed by all Administrations dating back to President George W. Bush. On the other hand, the rigid adherence to "tradition" of not sitting or deciding cases for the months of July-October and the absolute refusal to summarily dismiss appeals on the merits probably is a significant factor in the pile up of cases that wait until the First Monday in October and adds to the number of cases which are or become "emergencies" requiring shadow docket determinations.
October 2, 2023 was actually 105 weeks ago, not 104. How time flies!
Thank you for the otherwise superb post. It’s clear to me that the court needs to stop viewing itself as Trump’s protector, taking up every stay application, and to more often allow lower courts to provide status-quo-maintaining relief on a preliminary basis.
"(as was true in 1802—when Congress used its power over the Court’s schedule to prevent the justices from sitting at all between December 1801 and February 1803)."
Ok, now I'm really curious if Congress can do this. If by some chance Dems take both houses, could they simply prevent the court from meeting? Dems are probably too weenie to play this constitutional hardball, but it would be great to have such a tool in the toolbox. If the court doesn't want to do it's most basic job of explaining its own reasoning, thus showing the American people how they could possibly be ruling based on fair application of laws ... Maybe they just shouldn't be doing that job at all.
My son-in-law has begun asking questions about the shadow docket. This was a very helpful explainer, although a bit overwhelming.
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Given the Emergency Docket is nearly half the work of the court, it appears this court primarily wishes to create a body of law that is unexplained, yet allows it to do whatever it wants, without the inconvenient need to explain facts and law. This is all about ideology, not law and is truly troubling.
In your trivia today, you state "But it turns out, like so much else about the Court and its work, that’s entirely up to Congress". I have been thinking a lot about the "Unitary Executive Theory" (for obvious reasons). It seems to be that this statement can and should be applied in the same way to the relationship between Congress and the Executive. If the Judiciary is its own branch (i.e., Article III) and Congress can determine the contours of how that branch operates, then it should have similar power to determine the contours and limitations on the Executive branch.
I have seen tv episodes recently (with streaming, it could have been an old show) very similar to the Venezuelan father living in Spain enacting vengeance on the mother in America (or anywhere) just because he wants the child (likely for his own machismo pride and not out of a greater love for or safety reasons). It might have been blue bloods or the equalizer or both. These manufactured cases getting up to the supreme criminals of the US are outrageous just so they can fulfill the nazi opus dei nationalist manifesto. I’m appalled the sadist six rate the (low) approval rating they are getting.
While Democrats, should they retake Congress, cannot stop the Supreme Court from meeting, they can take away or limit its appellate power to stop the Supreme Court from overruling well reasoned decisions from lower courts.
To be a little bit fair to the Court, the record-setting number of emergency applications is due at least in some measure to the fact that the Trump Administration has filed more "emergency" appeals than than the COMBINED number filed by all Administrations dating back to President George W. Bush. On the other hand, the rigid adherence to "tradition" of not sitting or deciding cases for the months of July-October and the absolute refusal to summarily dismiss appeals on the merits probably is a significant factor in the pile up of cases that wait until the First Monday in October and adds to the number of cases which are or become "emergencies" requiring shadow docket determinations.
October 2, 2023 was actually 105 weeks ago, not 104. How time flies!
Thank you for the otherwise superb post. It’s clear to me that the court needs to stop viewing itself as Trump’s protector, taking up every stay application, and to more often allow lower courts to provide status-quo-maintaining relief on a preliminary basis.
"(as was true in 1802—when Congress used its power over the Court’s schedule to prevent the justices from sitting at all between December 1801 and February 1803)."
Ok, now I'm really curious if Congress can do this. If by some chance Dems take both houses, could they simply prevent the court from meeting? Dems are probably too weenie to play this constitutional hardball, but it would be great to have such a tool in the toolbox. If the court doesn't want to do it's most basic job of explaining its own reasoning, thus showing the American people how they could possibly be ruling based on fair application of laws ... Maybe they just shouldn't be doing that job at all.