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Excerpt from www.democracydocket.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with more than a dozen other Senate Democrats, introduced a bill on Wednesday requiring U.S. Supreme Court justices to provide written explanations and record votes for decisions in their emergency docket, also known as the shadow docket.
“Our Shadow Docket Sunlight Act would open these decisions to greater public view and scrutiny— literally bringing light and accountability to outcomes of important cases now handed down in peremptory silence,” Blumenthal said in a statement.
The court’s shadow docket includes requests for immediate action from the court and primarily consists of requests to pause a lower court’s order, which voids a decision in a case while an appeal is ongoing. These cases require extraordinary circumstances and proof that people would suffer “irreparable harm” if the ruling was left in place.
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