If there is a down-to-the-deadline scramble at the Supreme Court to intervene on a hot-button case with far-reaching implications, there is a good chance that the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals is the source of the legal fracas.
The very conservative appeals court – which oversees federal appeals arising from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi – has been responsible some of the most far-right, sweeping rulings that have been appealed to the Supreme Court. Many of those clashes have played out on the so-called shadow docket, the colloquial term for emergency applications that high court must decide on a quick timeline, without the full process of briefing and oral arguments.
The appeals court and the high court both lean heavily to the right – with appointees installed by former President Donald Trump taking both courts in an even more conservative direction. Yet in some disputes, the Supreme Court repeatedly batted down the 5th Circuit at a frequency that far exceeds that of other federal appeals courts.
The court has paused 5th Circuit rulings that would have blocked federal gun restrictions, interfered with federal immigration activity and limited Biden administration contact with social media companies.
In the most recent shadow docket dispute to arise out of the 5th Circuit, stemming from a Biden administration challenge to a controversial Texas immigration law, the Supreme Court left in place an order from the appeals court that would allow the law to take effect. But two of the Supreme Court’s conservatives signed a concurrence that urged the 5th Circuit to quickly move forward with a fuller review of the law, and within hours, the appeals court paused the law’s enforcement.
Rulings from the 5th Circuit that the Supreme Court has recently reviewed on the merits have gotten a…
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