Saturday, November 08, 2025

All Hat, And No Brains

Eggs 🥚 is the metaphor he’s looking for. Why does he hate dogs so much? Is it because they’re good judges of character? What a boon to the...lenders?

My parents lived in their third house for 50 years. My mind boggles to think about them paying off the mortgage months before selling it so they could move to assisted living in old age.
You can’t afford Thanksgiving dinner, and probably won’t be able to fly home for Thanksgiving anyway, but the President of Argentina is grateful for American largesse. Preferably expect them to decrease the surplus population. Cancer patients don’t use AI or buy expensive electric cars, so…. Yeah, about that:
The first thing to say about this order is that I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. Circuit Justices don’t usually explain administrative stays, and certainly not with this much detail about the timing. Here, Justice Jackson is clearly telling the First Circuit to hustle—a message I am sure the court of appeals will receive and act upon.

As for why Justice Jackson did it, to me, the clue is the last sentence. Had Jackson refused to issue an administrative stay, it’s entirely possible (indeed, she may already have known) that a majority of her colleagues were ready to do it themselves. I still think that this is what happened back in April when the full Court intervened shortly before 1 a.m., without explaining why Justice Alito hadn’t, in the A.A.R.P. Alien Enemies Act case. And from Jackson’s perspective, an administrative stay from the full Court would’ve been worse—almost certainly because it would have been open-ended (that is, it would not have had a deadline). The upshot would’ve been that Judge McConnell’s order could’ve remained frozen indefinitely while the full Court took its time. Yesterday’s grant of a stay in Trump v. Orr, for instance, came 48 days after the Justice Department first sought emergency relief.

Instead, by keeping the case for herself and granting the same relief, in contrast, Justice Jackson was able to directly influence the timing in both the First Circuit and the Supreme Court, at least for now. She nudged the First Circuit (which I expect to rule by the end of the weekend, Monday at the latest); and, assuming that court rules against the Trump administration, she also tied her colleagues’ hands—by having her administrative stay expire 48 hours after the First Circuit rules. Of course, the full Court can extend the administrative stay (and Jackson can do it herself). But this way, at least, she’s putting pressure on everyone—the First Circuit and the full Court—to move very quickly in deciding whether or not Judge McConnell’s orders should be allowed to go into effect. From where I’m sitting, that’s why Justice Jackson, the most vocal critic among the justices of the Court’s behavior in Trump-related emergency applications, ruled herself here—rather than allowing the full Court to overrule her. It drastically increases the odds of the full Supreme Court resolving this issue by the end of next week—one way or the other.

I am, of course, just speculating. But if so, I think it’s both a savvy move from Justice Jackson and a pretty powerful rejoinder to the increasingly noisy (and ugly) criticisms of her behavior from the right. Given the gravity of this issue, it makes all the sense in the world for a justice in Jackson’s position to do whatever she could to ensure that the underlying question (must the USDA fully fund SNAP for November?) is resolved as quickly as possible—even if that first means pausing Judge McConnell’s rulings for a couple of days. If the alternative was a longer pause of McConnell’s rulings, then this was the least-worst alternative, at least for now. And regardless, imposing this compromise herself, rather than forcing her colleagues to overrule her, is, to me, a sign of a justice who takes her institutional responsibilities quite seriously, indeed—even when they lead away from the result she might otherwise have preferred if it were entirely up to her.
I know it takes an analysis by a law professor, but maybe try not to treat the fucking headline like it’s the gospel message, huh?🤔 
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. The Thought Criminal6:15 PM

    I'll admit that I'm hoping they crash it so bad that this time we get universal healthcare without the insurance industry. The Roberts Court will be doing everything they can to keep democracy from working as will those in the branches that have to face the voters. I don't think anything but a crash as big as the ones the oligarchs and Republicans caused in 1928 will save us. And that's nothing like a guarantee it will work again to do that.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)