From the per curiam opinion:
Because the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied—we grant the application. We express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum. The District Court enjoined further implementation or approval of the plans based on its view about the illegality of the Executive Order and Memorandum, not on any assessment of the plans themselves. Those plans are not before this Court.
Sotomayor's concurrence explicates this a bit more, and while it's not necessarily what each of the majority hold, it seems plausibly what others also hold:
I agree with Justice Jackson that the President can- not restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates. See post, at 13. Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force “consistent with applicable law,” App. to Application for Stay 2a, and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much. The plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the Court’s stay because it leaves the District Court free to consider those questions in the first instance.
If the EO and the derivative documents say that the plans are to implemented in a way "consistent with applicable law" and the plans aren't known, how can you say a priori that the plans will violate applicable law?
Don't you need a violation for an injunction, not just the suspicion that maybe there'll be something illegal in the implementation?
So ask for the plan. Review how implementation goes. Check against applicable law (which is presumably what "congressional mandates" means). Then judge.
They. Kicked. The. Can. But they didn't prejudge.
I suspect the actual plans presented will be at odds with the plans executed and one or both will be in violation of all sorts of statutes. That'll make for a hell of a mess. But it's a mess required by due process--you don't enjoin what's claimed to be a legal action because it's obviously going to be illegal and you don't trust the defendant. You punish illegality present and past, not illegality future.
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