According to the sanewashed facts in Shelby County, the VRA was no longer necessary because racially discriminatory voting practices were “rare” and the remaining sections of the statute would be sufficient to protect minority voting rights. In the decade since the Court offered those tepid reassurances, states formerly subject to the VRA’s preclearance requirements have passed an avalanche of discriminatory voter suppression laws as the Roberts Court has simultaneously sought to further weaken the law. The Court is now prepared to strike down the remaining vestiges of the statute it promised would remain in place to ensure voting rights remained protected.
Similarly, when sanewashing the First Amendment to recognize new speech rights by corporations to engage in unlimited political spending in Citizens United, the Roberts Court tried to assure a skeptical public that dismantling decades of campaign finance regulations would strengthen the integrity of elections and allow voters to hold officials accountable. Fifteen years later, the ruling has unleashed a torrent of unregulated corporate spending in American politics, enabling super PACs to raise limitless funds from corporations and undisclosed donors to exercise an outsized influence on election results. Between 2010 and 2024, political spending by super PACs grew from $62.6 million to $4.1 billion. Americans are so disgusted with dark money in politics that an overwhelming majority supports a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
In recent months, the Roberts Court has adopted a new sanewashing strategy—the shadow docket. The Supreme Court, traditionally a court of last review, has increasingly decided significant legal questions on its shadow docket, boldly exercising its discretionary review power and circumventing the typical judicial process. The shadow docket, which is quickly becoming one of the Roberts Court’s preferred sanewashing forums, has generated a glut of unexplained rulings, decided without the benefit of hearing the full merits of the case and with enormous practical and legal consequences. On the shadow docket, the Roberts Court has inserted itself into high-stakes legal challenges against the Trump administration, sanewashing and mischaracterizing lower court rulings preventing the administration’s lawless conduct as “emergencies” to justify intervening on the president’s behalf.
