The ballroom decision turns a lot on standing, which we will get to later in the semester, so I don't want to throw too much of it at you. But take this away: Standing in this case was at least arguably proper (as the dissent argues) under controlling doctrine allowing standing based on "aesthetic" concerns in environmental cases. One way of reading the ballroom decision is the majority pulling back on that environmental standing. Again, we will come back to this in the Standing section of the class.
But this piece by Prof. Michael Dorf (Cornell) raises a specific problem related to the shadow docket: A court should find the merits prong of the stay inquiry satisfied only if the lower court erred in understanding or applying existing law; a stay decision is not proper where the Court wants to change that law. But it appears that in this case the majority granted the stay because the lower court erred and the government is likely to succeed under what the majority plans/hopes/wants to turn the law into. The plaintiff (at least arguably) had standing under current standing law; the plaintiff does not have standing under a narrow approach to standing law.
The same is true with the firing cases from two years ago. Firing members of the Merit Systems Protection Board was improper under Humphrey's Executor; an injunction stopping those firings should have remained in effect (because the government was unlikely to succeed) until the Court overruled Humphrey's Executor. When the Court granted that stay, everyone knew Humphrey's days were numbered.
