From the ACLU, this is at Liberty.

I'm Molly Kaplan, your host.

This past June, many breathed a sigh of relief when the U.S. Supreme Court rose above partisanship

in controversial cases involving abortion,

LGBTQ-plus rights, the rights of dreamers, and the president's tax returns.

In those cases, conservative justices relied on legal reasoning rather than party loyalty to guide

their decisions. But lurking in the shadows is a concerning new trend in the Supreme Court

to grant an unprecedented number of emergency orders, with little transparency and no opportunity for recourse.

These cases fall under the courts aptly named shadow docket, and under the Trump administration, this shadow docket has grown exponentially, with the Supreme Court disproportionately ruling

on the side of the administration. Here to tell us about this trend and why it's so concerning

is the ACLU's legal director, David Cole. We spoke with David before Justice Ruth Bader

Ginsburg's death and before President Trump had announced Amy Coney-Barritt as his pick to replace

Justice Ginsburg.

It is safe to say that the trends we discussed with David are unlikely to shift course

and could even worsen in the wake of these events.

Now to our interview.

David, welcome back to the podcast.

Thanks for having me, Molly.

First off, I wanted to mention that you've been on the podcast before,

not so long ago. We talked about the end of the Supreme Court term and all of the decisions

that had just dramatically come down in June. And we were basically heaping praise on the court

for sort of rising above those party loyalties and using legal reasoning and crossing political divides.

...