The Supreme Court has always had the authority to issue emergency rulings--but until recently, it did so only in exceptional circumstances. Yet in the past decade, the court has expanded its use of the "shadow docket" dramatically. Vladeck traces its emergence in the 1970s and its recent embrace by a conservative-leaning court that has expanded it to set policy on everything from election law to abortion to immigration.
Vladeck is a conscientious guide through the legal thickets, taking care to show exactly how the conservative members of the court have used the shadow docket to expand religious liberty and crush reproductive rights ... Vladeck has taken it upon himself to translate the court’s deliberately cryptic orders and legal technicalities into accessible English. Perhaps inevitably, though, his subject matter can get so convoluted that it forces him to write mouthfuls ... He also takes pains in this book to be as fair and methodical as possible.
Mr. Vladeck’s book starts with a history of how the Court picks its cases in the first place ... Discussions of the election cases, religious-liberty cases and abortion cases make up the rest of Mr. Vladeck’s book, and here its tone changes substantially. He launches invective against the Court’s conservative justices ... His sweeping judgments only make it harder for readers to ascertain the legal and factual questions at hand.
Important ... Vladeck is reticent about how to remedy this situation. Congress could rein in the court by imposing term limits, adding additional justices, or stripping the court of jurisdiction over some cases.
