How Long Did Justice Jackson’s “Kafkaesque Nightmare” Dissent Hold Up Trump v. California?

In a future writing, I propose a mechanism whereby six Justices can force the release of any pending case.

On July 27, 2026, the Solicitor General submitted an emergency application in Trump v. California. This case concerns proposed regulations for mail-in ballots. The government filed its reply brief on August 12. After a flurry of litigation in the lower court, and new action by the government, the Supreme Court finally decided the case on August 24. This emergency case took nearly a month.

The majority opinion, at a brisk ten pages, finds the District Court lacked jurisdiction because the case was not yet ripe. Moreover, any alleged injuries were speculative under Clapper. The per curiam opinion reads a lot of Justice Kavanaugh’s voice. I do like the word “concretize.” Justice Kavanuagh has taken the lead in writing some of the Court’s more significant jurisdictional cases. One would think that a former federal courts professor in the majority would get these cases, but apparently not.

Justice Sotomayor’s pithy dissent covers all the bases in only four pages.

Continue reading the entire piece here at Reason

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Josh Blackman is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.