The Supreme Court on Aug. 24 granted the Trump administration an emergency stay in its dispute with 23 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia over the President’s March executive order on election administration. The vote was 6-3, the three liberal justices dissenting.
The decision is narrow. The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits and did not take the case; it stayed a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, in an unsigned order from the emergency docket. The stated ground was jurisdictional: the executive order by itself does not injure the states—only measures implementing it could—so the district court had no basis to bar the government from trying. “The Court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful,” the order says. “On that score, time will tell.”
In other words, it will be necessary to address specific actions taken by the administration.
