President Donald Trump appears to have found six accomplices in his quest to dismantle the federal government, according to one lawyer.
Michael Waldman, President and CEO of The Brennan Center, wrote in an analysis that the conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court "are proving willing accomplices to a constitutional coup, all without leaving a trace." He cites the court's use of the so-called "shadow docket" in major cases as a prime example of its complicity.
Shadow docket is a term that refers to an order or motion from the Supreme Court in which the justices say they have not reached a final decision.
The most recent case that follows this trend is McMahon v. New York, a case where the Supreme Court allowed Trump to dismantle the Department of Education by firing all of its workers.
Presidents are not allowed to shut down government agencies without a vote from Congress. The Supreme Court's ruling allowed Trump to side-step that requirement, and did so without any of the justices attaching their name to the opinion.
"This major ruling follows a disturbing recent pattern," Waldman argued. "In the past few months, the justices have used the shadow docket to let the president fire independent agency heads, in clear violation of 90 years of precedent. They’ve allowed the administration to deport people to countries where they never lived. And they’ve given effective approval to the Pentagon’s move to bar transgender people from serving in the military."
"All these measures involve a passive-aggressive jurisprudence: We aren’t making a big ruling, you see, just addressing something done by other judges," he continued. "Though the rulings are technically temporary, the damage is done."
The shadow docket rulings also seem to have emboldened Trump, who could continue to axe important government agencies in the future, Waldman argued.
"As checks and balances are under assault, the Court has chosen to be complicit," Waldman wrote. "It has found a new way to hand power to a lawless executive. At a moment of historic peril, history may record few rulings of consequence — just wreckage strewn across the constitutional landscape."