As the tumultuous first year of Donald Trump's second term as president approaches its end, it's difficult to assess his successes and his failures. For one thing, his governing strategy has been all but unprecedented. Most presidents who have just won an election are forced to choose whether they want to cash in their political chips to get big things done or build up political capital for future elections.
It's only when you get to the Supreme Court that you see these problems start to arise. And it's the use of, this overuse of the shadow docket. You know, by taking these cases and decided them, essentially deciding them, without hearing any oral argument, with any adequate briefing. You know, deciding these really important matters in that way challenges the legitimacy of the court and does an untold amount of damage to the fabric, legal fabric of this nation.
Citing the fictional sport from the watershed comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, Jackson wrote 'Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.' As a dissent in yet another shadow docket decision allowing the administration to take arbitrary and capricious action free from the constraints of either statute or judicial oversight, the Calvinball analogy hit home.
