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JUSTICE JACKSON GOES 'HER OWN WAY' IN SNAP FIGHT  
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John Fritze
November 15, 2025
CNN
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_ Jackson handled the case as should be done on the emergency docket.
Justices, she said, should deal with the requests "quickly, as
transparently as possible, and for logistical reasons, not…make what
amount to significant substantive decisions" _

In this February 13 photo, US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown
Jackson speaks to the 2025 Supreme Court Fellows Program at the
Library of Congress in Washington, DC., Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/Getty
Images

 

As she oversaw President Donald Trump's emergency Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, case this past week, Justice
Ketanji Brown Jackson once again proved she isn't beholden to Supreme
Court custom.

The least senior justice, who has been the court's most CONSISTENT
CRITIC OF THE SECOND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
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appeared to be sending signals not only about the technicalities of
the SNAP case but also more subtle messages about the way the court
has handled a litany of short-fuse appeals on its emergency docket
this year dealing with presidential power.

She did all that, oddly enough, BY SIDING WITH TRUMP
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"She's modeling the way that the emergency docket should be used,"
said Elizabeth Wydra, the president of the liberal Constitutional
Accountability Center.

Since joining the court three years ago, Jackson has drawn attention
for a sharp pen. That has been particularly notable in a series of
cutting dissents she has written this year calling out the Trump
administration for what she has framed as "LAWLESSNESS
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she has not spared her colleagues for acquiescing to the White House
in some of those decisions.

"This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist," Jackson wrote in
August when the court allowed the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO HALT ABOUT
$800 MILLION
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in research grants. "Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed
rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this administration always
wins."

That pointed prose and her unflinching willingness to criticize her
colleagues has made Jackson, who was nominated to the bench by former
President Joe Biden, a divisive figure.

"Even before the SNAP case, Justice Jackson had already emerged as the
most vocal, most frequent, and sharpest critic of the majority’s
inconsistent, difficult-to-justify, and often unjustified behavior in
Trump-related cases," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst
and professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

Her machinations in the case, Vladeck said, underscored "a justice who
is using every possible strategic and tactical maneuver behind the
scenes to try to push the court toward what she believes the right
answer is, but who is unafraid of sending increasingly loud public
signals when those efforts are, as they so often have been this year,
ultimately for naught."

The appeal on funding for SNAP emerged as the highest-profile legal
case of the government shutdown. A lower court ORDERED THE US
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
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transfer $4 billion from another fund to pay full SNAP benefits for
November – an order that the administration appealed as an overreach
of judicial power.

With a midnight deadline approaching – and benefits for more than 40
million Americans hanging in the balance – the case landed in a rush
at the Supreme Court on a Friday evening. Trump wanted the justices to
temporarily block the lower court order, known as a "stay."

Because she handles emergency appeals from the Boston-based 1st US
Circuit Court of Appeals, the case went to Jackson. The "circuit
justice" generally plays a straightforward role, setting a briefing
schedule and – in big cases – ultimately referring the matter to
the full court.

But as he has raced up to the Supreme Court this year in case after
case, Trump has been asking for something else as well: An even
shorter-term order known as an "administrative stay," which freezes
the lower court decision while the justices review the written
arguments in the case.

That administrative decision, usually, rests with the assigned justice
– in this case, Jackson.

A former trial court judge who recently took up boxing as a way to
relieve stress, Jackson ULTIMATELY GRANTED TRUMP'S REQUEST
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a move that initially raised anxiety among liberals and cheers from
conservatives on social media. But Jackson also took several steps
that were a departure from how other justices have handled
administrative stays.

First, Jackson included a few paragraphs of written explanation in her
order, breaking from the boilerplate-only language usually found in
administrative stays. She wrote that she was granting Trump's request
"to facilitate" the appeals court's "expeditious resolution" of the
appeal.

The Supreme Court has faced enormous criticism this year for regularly
overturning lower court orders on its emergency docket without
explanation. While there are SOMETIMES GOOD REASONS
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for brevity in those cases, some justices – such as Justice Elena
Kagan – have said the court could PROVIDE A LITTLE MORE EXPLANATION
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Second, rather than leaving the timing open-ended, Jackson set her
administrative order to lift 48 hours after the appeals court ruled.

Jackson likely understood – or at least assumed – there would be a
majority to grant Trump’s request if she didn't do so. By granting
it herself but limiting the timeline, rather than sending it to the
full court, she had the effect of bringing the case back to her
chambers for a second look in an unusually short order, Vladeck wrote
in WIDELY CIRCULATED POST [[link removed]] over the weekend.

Wydra said Jackson handled the case as should be done on the emergency
docket. Justices, she said, should deal with the requests "quickly, as
transparently as possible, and for logistical reasons, not…make what
amount to significant substantive decisions."

Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston
who also wrote about Jackson’s maneuvers, agreed that she appeared
to be going "her own way."

"She has a clear vision of how she wants the shadow docket to be run,"
Blackman said.

But, he suggested, it ultimately didn't work. In the end, as Congress
DREW CLOSER TO AN AGREEMENT
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to fund the government, the full court extended her administrative
stay for a few days without writing to explain why. Jackson wound up
in dissent, which she also registered without explanation. And the
Trump administration ultimately got what it wanted.

TRUMP SIGNED THE SPENDING MEASURE
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late Wednesday, reopening the federal government and funding the food
program. Hours later, the Department of Justice sent a letter to the
Supreme Court noting that it was abandoning its appeal – an
anticlimactic end to a case that had significant real-world
consequences.

On Thursday, as the court announced it was reopening its doors to the
public, a single line was added to the docket in the SNAP appeal:
"Application withdrawn."

* Ketanji Brown Jackson
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* Supreme Court
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* SNAP
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* Donald Trump
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