You can find the unusual cert. grant before judgment order here.

Here is what I wrote when the government asked for this petition to be granted: “As for the merits, the plaintiffs should win given the strength of Judge Furman’s opinion. But this is a highly charged political case before a partisan-divided Supreme Court, though CJ Roberts is trying to keep the temperature down.”

And earlier I wrote: “Justin suggests that would be procedurally irregular. But I’m not so sure. Yes DOJ has been running to SCOTUS a lot to try to get it to break its usual procedures and hear cases early. The Court has mostly rebuffed those requests. But not with the census, and for good reason. It seems to me that if the Court does not hear this case fully it would either (1) let plaintiffs run out the clock before the case gets full Court review or (2) the case gets decided as a stay, without a full SCOTUS opinion, on the so-called “shadow docket.” That’s really dissatisfying that we may get a dispositive SCOTUS ruling with no explanation. So I think things get expedited, and it would not be surprising for the normal schedules to be changed and contracted so that this all gets resolved by June (rendering other cases involving the census moot).”