Three justices dissented from the court’s two new rulings.
The Supreme Court handed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) two big wins late on June 6 in its effort to reduce the size of the federal government.
The nation’s highest court issued the two unsigned rulings at the same time.
One order removed a block on DOGE staffers accessing sensitive data at the Social Security Administration.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in the case known as Social Security Administration v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.
The other new order, in U.S. DOGE Service v. CREW, formally blocked lower court orders requiring DOGE to respond to freedom of information requests in a pending lawsuit.
That order came after Chief Justice John Roberts on May 23 issued an administrative stay temporarily blocking the lower court orders.
Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissented, but did not explain their reasoning.
President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14158 on Jan. 20, renaming the United States Digital Service as the United States DOGE Service and creating an advisory body that recommends cost-cutting measures for federal agencies.
The executive order directed the entity to “implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
