William Baude Discusses Upcoming US Supreme Court Term in New York Times Opinion Piece
‘Hypercharged’ Is the Only Word for This Supreme Court
William Baude, the Harry Kalven, Jr. Professor of Law, joined Kate Shaw, a contributing New York Times opinion writer, and Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown, for a conversation to assess a very busy Supreme Court as it enters a new ter.
In response to a question from Shaw how the Court’s "hypercharged summer" impacted his view of the Court’s treatment of the "shadow docket," Baude, who coined the phrase "shadow docket," responded: "There’s plenty to criticize about the court’s use of the interim docket (my new favorite term, courtesy of Justice Brett Kavanaugh), but Justice Kagan’s critique misses the biggest point. Exactly how the court goes about overruling or narrowing its precedents is not a new problem."
"The real problems," he continued, "are (1) how the court is making the discretionary parts of these interim decisions and (2) whether it can convince the country that it would be exercising its discretion the same way if it were Joe Biden or Kamala Harris doing things that are legally equivalent. On both of those counts I do worry that the court isn’t doing an A+ job."
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