Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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2 Courts (including this Court) have sometimes described stays as de-
vices meant to maintain the status quo. See, e.g., Nken v. Holder, 556
U. S. 418, 429 (2009) (“A stay ‘simply suspend[s] judicial alteration of the
status quo.’ ” (quoting Ohio Citizens for Responsible Energy, Inc. v. NRC,
479 U. S. 1312, 1313 (1986) (Scalia, J., in chambers))). That is a tricky
metric, because there is no settled way of defining “the status quo.” See
Bayefsky 1945 (“[I]t is not always easy to ascertain what counts as the
status quo”). Compare Prometheus Radio Project v. F.C.C., 2003 WL
22052896, *1 (CA3, Sept. 3, 2003) (per curiam); Doe #1 v. Trump, 944
F. 3d 1222, 1223 (CA9 2019) (defining status quo as the state of affairs
prior to the challenged law or rule), with Veasey v. Abbott, 870 F. 3d 387,
392 (CA5 2017) (per curiam); Golden Gate Restaurant Assn. v. City and
Cty. of San Francisco, 512 F. 3d 1112, 1116–1117 (CA9 2008) (defining
status quo as the state of affairs prior to judicial intervention). The “sta-
tus quo” in this case is not self-evident. Is it the day before Texas enacted
S. B. 4? The day before the lawsuit was filed? The day Texas’s appeal
and stay motion was docketed in the Fifth Circuit?
3 The private applicants argue that S. B. 4 will increase the cost of op-
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*The Fifth Circuit recently has developed a troubling habit of leaving
“administrative” stays in place for weeks if not months. See, e.g., United
States v. Abbott, No. 23–50632 (85 days, from Sept. 7, 2023, to Dec. 1,
2023); Petteway v. Galveston Cty., No. 23–40582 (41 days, from Oct. 18,
2023, to Nov. 28, 2023); Missouri v. Biden, No. 23–30445 (66 days, from
July 14, 2023, to Sept. 18, 2023); R. J. Reynolds v. FDA, No. 23–60037
(57 days, from Jan. 25, 2023, to Mar. 23, 2023); Campaign Legal Ctr. v.
Scott, No. 22–50692 (48 days, from Aug. 12, 2022, to Sept. 29, 2022).
Cite as: 601 U. S. ____ (2023) 7
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