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2026 Cardozo L. Rev. De-Novo 1 (2026)

handle is hein.journals/denovo2026 and id is 1 raw text is: CARDOZO LAW REVIEW de0novo HOW THE SUPREME COURT'S INCONSISTENT APPROACH TO GRANTING EMERGENCY RELIEF WILL EXACERBATE, RATHER THAN MITIGATE THE DISRUPTION ITS EMERGENCY STAY POLICY IS SUPPOSED TO ADDRESS Harvey L. Reitert The federal government has used the Supreme Court's emergency or shadow docket to great effect this past year, securing stay after stay of lower court rulings that had blocked many of the President's executive orders. But the Court's rulings have come, almost invariably, without any explanation of its reasoning. And its opaque and uneven rulings have also come at a potential cost to the Court's credibility. This Article illustrates the uneven nature of the Court's rulings by contrasting two lines ofcases: (1) the Court's stays of lower court rulings restoring to their positions FTC, NLRB, EEOC, and MSPB members who had been fired by the President without cause and (2) its ruling denying expedited relief to importers who have been harmed by the massive tariffs the President has imposed on them. The Article urges the Court to be more transparent in its shadow docket rulings to bolster public confidence in the Court. I t Harvey Reiter is Senior Counsel in the Washington D.C. office of Stinson, LLP and an adjunct professor of law at George Washington University Law School where he teaches the course Regulated Industries. Mr. Reiter served as Executive Editor and later Editor-in-Chief of the Energy Law Journal from 2005-2025.