What Is "The Shadow Docket?"

Civics 101

A law in Texas banning abortions after six weeks. The blocking of a majority-Black congressional district in Alabama. OSHA regulations requiring vaccinations or a negative COVID test result. 

All of these controversial issues were decided not through the tried-and-true method of a hearing in the Supreme Court, but rather through a system called "the shadow docket," orders from the court that are (often) unsigned, inscrutable, and handed down in the middle of the night. Professor Stephen Vladeck takes us through this increasingly common phenomenon.

IF YOU LOVE OUR WORK, MAKE A DONATION TO SUPPORT CIVICS 101!

This episode originally dropped in May, 2022. 

  • CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
  • To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
  • Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2023-07-04 26 min

Available Results

Generated results are saved to the knowledge database for reuse and search.

No generated results are available for this episode yet.

Extract Knowledge

Pick what you want extracted first. Model, scope, and chapter options appear after a template is selected.

Generated results for public episodes are saved to the knowledge database so they can be reused and searched later.

Transcript

No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in

Chapters

No chapters available.