Thread by @stevenmazie

BREAKING: Supreme Court grants Trump administration requet to halt census count while litigation continues in the 9th circuit court of appeals

Justice Sotomayor is the only justice to note her dissent.

Here is the order, with Justice Sotomayor's dissent drive.google.com/file/d/1vnDLjW…

Justice Sotomayor says the Court "normally does not grant extraordinary relief on such a painfully disproportionate balance of harms".

Given the tight timeline, the potential harms seem significant: it's unclear whether/how the counting operation could be paused and then restarted if the 9th circuit were to reinstate the lower-court stay after deliberation.

Justice Sotomayor's closing line.

This is I think the third solo dissent Justice Sotomayor has issued since Justice Ginsburg's death.

The two used to be a dissenting pair.

One possibly decisive q in the application is how far along the count is. Challengers said new numbers from the govt that they're above 99% are suspect; interesting that Justice Sotomayor does not question that figure but still finds it inadequate given undercount of minorities.

For those wondering about Justices Kagan and Breyer and why they did not join Sotomayor's dissent: since this is a "shadow-docket" order, we know only that at least 5 justices vote to grant the stay. We don't know for sure how K & B voted.