Tonight, the Court extended the administrative stay in Rollins v. RI Council of Churches for 48 hours. This order blocks the TRO that required the Trump Administration to immediately pay out billions for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Justice Jackson dissented from the extension of the administrative stay, and from the application altogether.

The order used an unusual locution:

The application for stay presented to Justice Jackson is referred to the Court.

Do you see it? The order uses the passive voice. I could only find a handful of entries on the Supreme Court's docket with this construction, and none in the modern era.

By contrast, usually the structure is that the Circuit Justice affirmatively refers the application to the full Court.

Just last week, the or

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