Rick HasenVerified account

It has fingerprints of Breyer (especially the writing style) all over it. Likely with support from CJ Roberts, Kagan, Kennedy /3

It splits the difference--let's each side declare victory, as is clear from early reactions--and says little on the merits. /4

And, as @LeahLitman says, there's a good chance the Court never needs to reach the merits. So the partial stay avoids hardships but /5

lets the government credibly claim it can keep out those most likely to do U.S. harm and preserves President's general prerogatives /6

It might be administratively messy (as Leah suggests) and perhaps incoherent as law, but centrist political compromise /7

More broadly it lets us divide #SCOTUS into three camps in these kinds of cases centrist block, hard right, and hard left /8

centrists-Breyer, Kagan, Kennedy, Roberts hard right--Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas hard left--Ginsburg, Sotomayor

If this is right, then when Kennedy leaves and Roberts is the swing Justice, he's likely to be more institutionalist than hard right /11

What I mean by that is Roberts is more likely to vote in the center for pragmatic reasons even if his ideology lines up w/hard right /12

Best institutionalist option in #travelban is this partial compromise stay, followed by a decision NEVER reaching merits /13

and today's order seems to tee up that possibility nicely (if so, expect strong dissent from Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas) 14/14