Ace:
They reversed previous injunctions issued by, of course, a Hawaiian judge.
Then someone initiated a new lawsuit and, get this, a Hawaiian judge enjoined the travel ban from taking effect yet again.
This time, the Supreme Court says “No more injunctions from these particular courts until we rule on the law as a whole.”
I called these “Resistance” judges lawless. It seems like the Supreme Court has recognized that and stripped them of their power to make further lawless rulings.
The language they use in these orders (knocking down both injunctions) is here. What the Court says, basically, is that if the Court of Appeals for each lower court disagrees with the lower court, fine, the Supreme Court’s stay of the injunction terminates automatically (as it would be moot– the Court of Appeals would have voided the injunction).
But if the Court of Appeals agrees with the lower court and wants to continue the injunction, then the Supreme Court’s cancellation of that injunction remains in effect until the Supreme Court decides the case for itself.
Second time SCOTUS has firmly blocked travel ban injunctions. Agressively too, staying any further injunctions in CA4, CA9 litigation before SCOTUS can review. This is a big "knock it off" signal to #resistance judges.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 4, 2017
Unfortunately, this ruling does not extend to the other parts of the country where more Hawaiian judges (even Hawaiian judges not based in Hawaii) might issue similar “We don’t care about previous Supreme Court rulings, we’re issuing injunctions anyway” rulings, but one imagines the Supreme Court would now very swiftly issue the same orders in those cases, invalidating the injunctions.