They may be formally finished with the 2024 term, but the Supreme Court isn’t done issuing rulings when it comes to their Emergency Docket and the numerous cases lodged against the Trump administration and various executive actions taken.
One of the administration’s more consequential moves was Executive Order 14210: “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative,” which aimed to reorganize 20 federal agencies, including the Departments of State, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In May, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston issued a temporary restraining order regarding the EO, followed shortly thereafter by a preliminary injunction.
READ MORE: Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Government Overhaul. Is It Another Case of Judicial Overreach?
The administration appealed and ultimately, in early June, filed an application for stay with the Supreme Court. On Tuesday afternoon, the high court granted that application, issuing the following brief order:
Application (24A1174) for stay presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is granted. The May 22, 2025 preliminary injunction entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, case No. 3:25–cv–3698, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court. The District Court’s injunction was based on its view that Executive Order No. 14210, 90 Fed. Reg. 9669 (2025), and a joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management implementing that Executive Order are unlawful. Because the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied— we grant the application. We express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum. The District Court enjoined further implementation or approval of the plans based on its view about the illegality of the Executive Order and Memorandum, not on any assessment of the plans themselves. Those plans are not before this Court. Justice Sotomayor concurs. (Detached Opinion) Justice Jackson dissents. (Detached Opinion)
A couple of things to note here. First, the court bases its ruling on the premise that “the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful.” In other words, the court believes Judge Illston has it wrong. That’s not a formal guarantee, but a good sign for the administration moving forward.
Second, the court also notes that it is not ruling on the merits of any particular plan as no such plan is (yet) before it — just the EO itself and the joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, which the court believes are lawful.
Third, and perhaps surprising to some, not only did Justice Elena Kagan agree with the majority…but so did Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She authored a brief concurrence:
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, concurring in the grant of stay.
I agree with JUSTICE JACKSON that the President cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates. See post, at 13. Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force “consistent with applicable law,” App. to Application for Stay 2a, and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much. The plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the Court’s stay because it leaves the District Court free to consider those questions in the first instance.
In other words, she agrees with the majority that Judge Illston got out over her skis here. But she’s on board with Illston assessing the actual plans once they are set forth.
Lone (wo)man out here is Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who authored a 15-page dissent. We’ve seen quite a bit of that lately, it seems.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, accusing her colleagues of a “demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.”
With that said, this is a solid win for the Trump administration — another one.
Editor’s Note: Radical leftist judges are doing everything they can to hamstring President Trump’s agenda to make America great again.
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