An essential Supreme Court scholar, Georgetown Law Professor Steve Vladeck helped illuminate the effect of the court’s increasing reliance on unsigned and unexplained orders in his book “The Shadow Docket.” He’s been a go-to legal expert for me throughout much of my nearly two-decade career. So too for numerous other reporters in my beat.
That gives his assessment about how the U.S. judiciary has handled Trump’s second term particular gravitas. You may be surprised by the cogent case for optimism offered by such a sober and clear-eyed authority.
“Yes, there are visible cases where the government does not seem to be moving quickly enough to provide what the courts have ordered,” Vladeck said. “I wonder if maybe we also should be telling more of the success stories. More of the stories about the cases where plaintiffs have won; the government is complying, and they're not even appealing. Where the lawsuit actually has done exactly what it was supposed to do.”
More than 1,500 people joined us live during our conversation on Monday afternoon, and we both wanted to post the archived video for those who weren’t able to watch it in real time.
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