The federal judiciary’s internal strains have spilled out into the news—something that doesn’t ordinarily occur. The stresses stem from litigation involving the Trump administration and from changes in how the US Supreme Court has chosen to handle that litigation.
As a result, it isn’t just the law in flux: The path a case normally follows through the federal courts, and the likelihood of holding onto a ruling at any given level of the court system, have changed in litigation involving the federal government. With emergency stays, injunctions, and reconsideration orders at every level of the courts, federal litigation is ...