Interim Docket: Margolin and Irreparable Harm

My first SCOTUSBlog Interim Docket post

SCOTUSBlog has recently launched an Interim Docket blog, and I have my first post there. Here it is:

It looks like we have our first significant interim docket ruling since the launch of [the Interim Docket] blog, the denial of a stay, without noted dissent, in Margolin v. National Association of Immigration Judges. I do not think we can read too much into this denial, especially since it is “without prejudice to a reapplication if the District Court commences discovery proceedings before the disposition of the Government’s forthcoming petition for a writ of certiorari,” which might lead to a de facto stay of discovery below.

Still, the denial is notable for two reasons. First, given the Solicitor General’s track record of successes on the interim docket in recent months, any denial is notable.

Second, the reason for the denial: “At this stage, the Government has not demonstrated that it will suffer irreparable harm without a stay.” In the past few years, it had seemed like the Court was edging closer and closer to suggesting that the Government always could show irreparable harm almost automatically, building and building off of the old in-chambers statement that “[A]ny time a State is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury.” Perhaps the Court is moving back to assessing irreparable harm with more nuance and precision, as it should.

Again, we should not read too much into such a brief and tentative disposition, but the issue of irreparable harm to the government is one to watch this term.