BlueKat

Oh. Huh.

To expand on that a bit since I initially wrote that post in the immediate aftermath and have done some more reading on it (though some will be a bit redundant with that quoted bit above), while it's of course not great that Jackson basically found herself in a position where her least harmful move was to still grant a stay to stop SNAP benefits, my understanding of what she did was basically to box out most of the conservative wing of SCOTUS's usual shadow docket shit.

The Trump Administration basically went straight from the district court's ruling that SNAP must be funded and sent out right to SCOTUS's shadow docket (the "emergency" docket.) That's... not how you're supposed to do things in the judicial system because the standard appellate process is District -> Circuit -> SCOTUS and they were outright skipping the Circuit level (though did after the fact appeal the ruling to the First Circuit via the normal process while still asking SCOTUS to step in on the shadow docket.)

Because this was happening within the First Circuit, emergency/shadow docket requests from there go to KBJ. Her options at this point were essentially all probably really bad. If she rejected the Trump Administration's request outright she could be overruled by the full Court. (In fact, it's suspected among Court observers such a thing happened fairly recently with a request in a different Circuit where Alito is in charge of the emergency requests where the full Court overruled his decision because a few months back there was some odd statements out of the Court and this was the best explanation for it.) If she referred the matter to the full Court she would be allowing the full Court to do its usual shadow docket bullshit where the conservative wing has of late pretty consistently sided with Trump on damn near everything, overturning lower courts that ruled against him, and without any explanation as for why. Technically speaking these aren't rulings on the merits so Roberts and co have the fig leaf of "oh we didn't say what Trump is doing is legal... we're just letting him continue to do it while making absolutely no hurry to actually decide on the merits" effectively giving Trump everything he wants while reserving the right to later pull the rug if it looks like Democrats could take advantage if the situation were ever reversed (see: student loan debt relief)

So instead, she chose to grant the Trump Administration's request but with a very shot administrative stay upon which the lower court rulings would immediately take effect again. It's basically "until the First Circuit rules on this within the normal process + 48 hours" but she also requested/told the First Circuit to move as quickly as they can on that ruling. So, if the First Circuit rules against Trump and affirms the District Court's ruling then the order that the administration must fund SNAP would quickly take effect again. Had the full Court been able to handle this request rather than solely KBJ they could have set a much longer timeline than 48 hours or hell just made it indefinite so that even if Trump lost at the Circuit Court he'd still be able to block SNAP because the emergency stay would have no deadline. Of course, if the First Circuit sides with Trump then we're in hell but that would always have been the case.

Now, I say all this, but I would expect this case to end up at SCOTUS again anyway almost immediately after the First Circuit rules (as again, appealing from a Circuit Court takes you to SCOTUS in the normal process) but it would be on the normal SCOTUS docket and not the shadow docket where Roberts and co. can hide behind unsigned, unexplained orders and while they could pull moves to stop SNAP from there (like revising KBJ's deadline to some bullshit like I outlined before) it'd be much more in the daylight than their usual shit.

KBJ herself is probably the most vocal of the justices in calling out the bullshit that both the Trump Administration and the conservative justices do with their use of the shadow docket so I'm pretty sure she was trying to thread a needle to prevent them from doing their usual shit here. It may not work and they may still do it but she was probably in a position where she knew if she didn't grant the stay and set the conditions herself then the ones granting it and doing that would instead be Roberts, Alito, and Thomas.