The Supreme Court’s shadow docket is causing a supposed legitimacy crisis. Taming the shadow docket requires reducing the power of the federal courts over the political branches. If there is no realistic way to give broad power to federal district courts without subordinating them to the Supreme Court, taming the shadow docket necessarily requires taming the lower federal courts. Perhaps reforms should aim not to disempower the federal courts to fix the shadow docket, but to strengthen the federal courts by expanding it. Indeed, that is the future for the shadow docket that Justice Kavanaugh proposed in his concurrence in CASA.

Source: New York Times April 12, 2026 03:12 UTC