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The Inside Story of 5 Days That Remade #SCOTUS

Secret memos obtained by The NYT illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine “#ShadowDocket” rulings on presidential power.

Just after 6PM on a February evening in 2016, the Supreme Court issued a cryptic, one paragraph ruling that sent both #climate policy & the court itself spinning in new directions.

#law #LegalEthics #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #compromised #IllegitimateCourt
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/us/politics/supreme-court-shadow-docket.html?unlocked_article_code=1.b1A.W0_1.54-PmsieNhyB&smid=nytcore-ios-share

For two centuries, the court had generally handled major cases at a stately pace that encouraged care & deliberation, relying on written briefs, oral arguments & in-person discussions. The justices composed detailed opinions that explained their thinking to the public & rendered judgment only after other courts had weighed in.

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But this time, the justices were sprinting to block a major presidential initiative. By a 5-to-4 vote along #partisan lines, the order halted President Barack #Obama’s Clean Power Plan, his signature #environmental policy. They acted before any other court had addressed the plan’s lawfulness. The decision consisted of only legal boilerplate, without a word of reasoning.

#law #LegalEthics #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #compromised #IllegitimateCourt

At the time, the ruling seemed like a curious one-off. But that single paragraph turned out to be a sharp & lasting break. That night marks the birth, many legal experts believe, of the court’s modern “#Shadow dDocket,” the secretive track that #SCOTUS6 has since used to make many major decisions, including granting #Trump more than 20 key victories on issues from immigration to agency power.

#law #LegalEthics #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #compromised #IllegitimateCourt

Since that night a decade ago, the logic behind #SCOTUS’ pivotal 2016 order has remained a mystery. Why did a majority of the justices bypass time-tested procedures & opt for a new way of doing business?
The answer would remain secret for generations, legal experts predicted. “We’ll never know (at least, until our grandkids can read the justices’ internal papers from that time period),” Stephen Vladeck, a #law prof at Georgetown, wrote in a newsletter in Feb marking the anniversary of the order.

The NYT has obtained those papers & is now publishing them, bringing the origins of the Supreme Court’s #ShadowDocket into the light.

The 16 pages of memos, exchanged in a five-day dash, provide an extraordinarily rare window into the court, showing how the justices talk to one another outside of public view.

#law #LegalEthics #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #compromised #IllegitimateCourt #SCOTUS
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/04/18/us/politics/supreme-court-shadow-docket-papers.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Writing on formal letterhead, but addressing one another by their first names & signing off with their initials, they sound notes of irritation, air grievances & plead for more time. In addition to the usual legal materials, they cite a #blog post &, twice, a #television interview. They sometimes engage with one another’s arguments. But they often simply talk past each other.

#law #LegalEthics #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #compromised #IllegitimateCourt #SCOTUS #ShadowDocket

In public, Chief Justice #JohnRoberts Jr. has cultivated a reputation for care & caution. The papers reveal a different side of him. At a critical moment for the country & the court, the papers show, he acted as a bulldozer in pushing to stop Mr. #Obama’s plan to address the global #ClimateCrisis.

#law #LegalEthics #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #compromised #IllegitimateCourt #SCOTUS #ShadowDocket

When colleagues warned the chief justice that he was proposing an unprecedented move, he was dismissive. “I recognize that the posture of this stay request is not typical,” he wrote. But he argued that the #Obama plan, which aimed to regulate #coal-fired plants, was “the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the power sector,” & too big, costly & consequential for the court not to act immediately.

#law #LegalEthics #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #IllegitimateCourt #SCOTUS #ShadowDocket

In the #Trump era, #JohnRoberts & the other conservative justices have repeatedly empowered the president through their #ShadowDocket rulings. By contrast, the papers reveal a court wielding those same powers to block #Obama. Justice Samuel A. #Alito Jr. warned that if the court failed to stop the president, its own “institutional legitimacy” would be threatened.

#law #LegalEthics #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #compromised #IllegitimateCourt #SCOTUS