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Whatever you think about the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial, 5-4 midnight ruling on the Texas statute forbidding most abortions in the state, one thing is clear: the court bears, in the name of accountability, the great responsibility of explaining its reasoning to the American people.
The court's reliance on the "shadow docket," a historic practice of ruling on emergency petitions, to uphold a novel law that greatly diminishes Roe v. Wade and converts every Texan into a law enforcement official, constituted a sharp departure from the usual process. The court spent less than three days on the case. There was no oral argument. The opinion was unsigned and a mere paragraph long. Given the court's weighty impact on a constitutional battle that has been raging since at least 1973, when the court held that women possess a fundamental right to obtain an abortion, the citizenry had every right to expect more transparency from the nation's highest tribunal.
Justice Hugo Black was fond of reminding his colleagues of the court's duty to explain its reasoning in terms that average Americans could understand. "The Constitution was written for the people, not the government," he often said. For Justice Black, this meant that the court's opinions sorting out the meaning of constitutional provisions and language should be clearly written in the name of transparency and accountability.
Justice Black's view of the...