NYT:

Justice Elena Kagan said Thursday that the Supreme Court was shortchanging the public and lower court judges by failing to explain its reasoning in rulings on cases that come before the court on an emergency basis, including challenges to the Trump administration’s efforts to transform the federal government.

“I think as we have done more and more on this emergency docket, there becomes a real responsibility that I think we didn’t recognize when we first started down this road, to explain things better,” Justice Kagan said. “I think that we should hold ourselves, sort of on both sides, to a standard of explaining why we’re doing what we’re doing.” . . .

Her comments came during an appearance in Monterey at an annual meeting of federal judges and lawyers from the Ninth Circuit. . . .

“I think we should be cautious about acting on the emergency docket,” Justice Kagan said. “Sometimes we have to, but I think we should be cautious.”

Decisions on that docket, known by critics as the shadow docket, are typically not fully briefed and argued before the court. Often, emergency docket decisions do not provide any description of the court’s reasoning, leaving lower court judges to decipher the meaning.

Politico has more on Justice Kagan’s remarks, including her thoughts on judicial independence and defiance of federal court orders.