Gov. Newsom A religious liberty public interest law firm heaped praise on the Supreme Court’s controversial use of the “ shadow docket ” in a Wednesday amicus brief. The brief asks the justices to grant emergency relief by stopping the state of California from enforcing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) COVID-19 pandemic health restrictions. Coined by University of Chicago law professor William Baude in 2015, the term “shadow docket” refers to rulings decided outside the court’s regular docket without oral argument. The public is able to see the court’s ultimate decision, but how the justices voted and much of the underlying reasoning remain a mystery. The mechanism is not new to the high court, but legal scholars have increasingly warned that the court’s reliance on the shadow docket is a point of high concern. In the wake of the pandemic, the use of the shadow docket has continued to grow, and that growth has caused an immediate impact on California’s ability to enforce health restrictions . The trend is one which attorneys at the Becket Law Fund for Religious Liberty urged the court to continue in its latest filing seeking an emergency order. “To hear some people tell it, there […]
