Steve Vladeck
By what is effectively a 9-6 vote, the en banc Fourth Circuit has vacated an injunction blocking DOGE from accessing Social Securit data (that #SCOTUS had previously stayed). Much of the drama is over the precedential effects of #SCOTUS's June 2025 intervention: georgetown.box.com/v/AFSCME-CA4...

AFSCME -- CA4 -- En Banc.pdf |...
AFSCME -- CA4 -- En Banc.pdf | Powered by Box

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Show threadSteve Vladeck5h ago
There's a *lot* to process. Among other things, yet again, we see a largely ideological divide over whether/to what extent #SCOTUS needs to explain itself if it expects its rulings on emergency applications to have downstream precedential effects (and the validity of critiques of it not doing so).
Show threadSteve Vladeck5h ago
There's a lot in Judge Heytens's majority opinion that strikes me as right (and good), including about why the plaintiffs have standing and why efforts to turn likelihood of success into a mixed probability analysis is bonkers. It's treating the three-paragraph #SCOTUS order as precedent that's not.