Learning Resources had seven separate opinions. Everyone wrote something, except for Justices Alito and Sotomayor. For a regular merits decision, where time is not of the essence, publishing seven separate opinions may be overkill, but does little harm. But for a quasi-emergency-docket case, where an emergency stay is in place, the Court should proceed with all deliberate speed. Such promptness was especially appropriate because tariffs were being collected every day. Indeed, even as the Court managed to produce 170 pages in about five months, they failed to write a single sentence about the remedy, as the President pointed out in his press conference. Chief Justice Roberts insisted "We do not speculate on hypothetical cases not before us." Yet they also don't decide the actual remedial issue that is squarely before the Court.
What took so long? The Chief probably wrote his majority opinion before breakfast. Justice Kavanaugh articulated almost every point from his dissent at oral argument. That analysis was developed some ago, perhaps even when Judge Taranto wrote his Federal Circuit dissent. And Justice Thomas appears to have been thinking about this topic for some time. I think the reason for the delay has to be Justice Gorsuch. He decided to write a forty-six page concurrence, even though he joined the majority opinion in full. The concurrence was entirely a response to what everyone else wrote. And by writing this behemoth, Gorsuch forced Justices Barrett, Kagan, Thomas, and Kavanaugh to respond to him. And in turn, Gorsuch would have to reply to their responses. There are footnotes upon footnotes.
Yet, Justice Gorsuch's colleagues did not give him nearly as much attention as he gave them. Justice Barrett dispatched with Justice Gorsuch's "straw man" argument in a few pages.
