A Shadow Of A Country

The Supreme Court issued yet another "shadow docket" ruling today, another 5-4 unsigned ruling with no explanation or decision, that restored a Trump regime environmental rule. The Roberts Court has done this before, most notably in refusing to stay Texas's Abortion Bounty law, a practice that has all but eliminated abortions in the state over the last few months, but the the difference this time is that Chief Justice Roberts finally joined the Court's three liberal justices in denouncing the practice.

Chief Justice John Roberts for the first time joined the U.S. Supreme Court’s liberal wing in blasting the conservative majority’s handling of the stream of emergency requests that critics have dubbed the “shadow docket.”

Roberts joined the three liberal justices in dissent Wednesday as the court temporarily reinstated a Clean Water Act rule issued by former President Donald Trump’s administration. A federal trial judge had tossed out the rule, which scaled back federal protections for streams, wetlands and other bodies of water.

Writing for the dissenters, including Roberts, Justice Elena Kagan said the states and industry groups backing the rule hadn’t shown that its reinstatement would have any practical impact. The court typically requires a showing of “irreparable harm” to issue an emergency order.

The majority’s decision “renders the court’s emergency docket not for emergencies at all,” Kagan wrote. “The docket becomes only another place for merits determinations -- except made without full briefing and argument.”

The Environmental Protection Agency under President Joe Biden is in the process of rewriting the rule. The court is planning to consider a more sweeping clash over the reach of the Clean Water Act in the nine-month term that starts in October.

 

Indeed, Justice Kagan ripped into the practice by the five conservatives.

Writing for the dissenters, Justice Elena Kagan said the court should have allowed the appeal to proceed in the ordinary course.

“The applicants have given us no good reason to think that in the remaining time needed to decide the appeal, they will suffer irreparable harm,” she wrote. “By nonetheless granting relief, the court goes astray.”

She added: “That renders the court’s emergency docket not for emergencies at all. The docket becomes only another place for merits determinations — except made without full briefing and argument.”

 

So yes, another SCOTUS decision with no oral argument, no debate, no authored opinion to explain the ruling, just a decree from the bench by five justices.

 

That's how the Court works now, you see. It's just there to rubber-stamp what the GOP wants.