Three notes on national injunctions. First, today the Court issued a stay of another universal injunction, this time in McHenry v. Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc. The Solicitor General had suggested that the Court could construe the stay request as a petition for certiorari before judgment, allowing the Court to directly address the universal injunction question. One reason that matters is that it would be good for the Court to tackle the universal-relief question directly, without the additional complexities that come from the context of the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Court did not grant certoriari before judgment, and Justice Gorsuch wrote a brief concurrence in the stay:
I agree with the Court that the government is entitled to a stay of the district court's universal injunction. I would, however, go a step further and, as the government suggests, take this case now to resolve definitively the question whether a district court may issue universal injunctive relief. See Labrador v. Poe, 601 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2024) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in grant of stay) (slip op., at 4–5, 11–13); Department of Homeland Security v. New York, 589 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2020) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in grant of stay) (slip op., at 1–5).
