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1 1 (August 27, 2021)

handle is hein.crs/goveekw0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ *.Research Service Informing the legisWative d4bate since 1914 The Shadow Docket: The Supreme Court's Non-Merits Orders Updated August 27, 2021 The evening of Friday, August 20, 2021, saw significant activity on the Supreme Court's non-merits docket. That evening, the Biden Administration filed an application for stay pending appeal in Biden v. Texas, seeking to pause a Texas district court order blocking the rescission of a Trump Administration immigration policy known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). After 11 p.m. that evening, Justice Alito issued a temporary administrative stay of the Texas court's decision, pausing the order requiring enforcement of the MPP until the full Court could consider whether a longer stay was warranted. Also on the evening of August 20, in Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services, a group of landlords and real estate trade associations challenging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction moratorium filed an emergency application for a Supreme Court order that would immediately bar enforcement of the moratorium. Shortly after the application was docketed in Alabama Association of Realtors, Chief Justice Roberts ordered the government to file a response by noon on Monday, August 23, 2021; the Court did not otherwise immediately act on the application. Both cases received significant news coverage, even before the full Court ruled in either matter. Later the same week, the full Court issued an order requiring implementation of the MPP and an unsigned opinion blocking enforcement of the eviction moratorium. The Supreme Court's non-merits or motions docket, sometimes informally called the Court's shadow docket, has recently attracted attention from legislators, legal commentators, and the popular press. While the Supreme Court's motions docket has existed almost as long as the Court itself, many observers believe that in recent years the Court has increasingly disposed of high-profile matters via non-merits rulings, and some have raised legal questions and concerns about that trend. This Legal Sidebar provides an overview of the Supreme Court's non-merits docket and discusses selected related considerations for Congress. Supreme Court Motions Practice and the Non-Merits Docket Discussion of Supreme Court cases often focuses on the Court's merits decisions-opinions that the Court issues after full briefing and oral argument. However, the Supreme Court also issues many orders outside the context of merits decisions, including orders granting or denying petitions for a writ of certiorari; rulings in emergency matters, such as requests to stay lower court decisions pending appeal; Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10637 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress