9th Circuit Motion Panel Acts in Perry v. Schwarzenegger

And what do the tea-leaves portend?

They granted the stay, pending resolution on appeal, without comment.  No explanations.

But, they also granted the plaintiffs' request for an expedited schedule on appeal, with a target of oral argument to be held the week of December 6.  That leaves appellants one month to file their brief, appellees a month to file their response, and a few weeks for appellants to file a reply brief, if any.

And they directed appellants to address the issue of standing in their brief, citing the Arizona English case (in which the Supreme Court expressed doubts that initiative proponents generally have standing to appeal an adverse ruling on the constitutionality of their initiative when the government defendants don't appeal).

The big lingering question is whether the governor and the attorney general will stay out of it.  If either enters the case, the standing argument may drop out.  LGBT groups in California are mounting a drive to get voters to contact the governor and attorney general, thanking them for their position on implementation of Judge Walker's ruling and urging them to hold firm.

Tea leaves?  The motion panel is not the 3-judge panel that will determine this case in the first instance, and we won't know who they are until shortly before the oral argument.  The composition of the panel could be crucial, or it could be inconsequential.  If the case goes en banc, it won't really matter very much what the 3-judge panel decides, since a grant of en banc review vacates the 3-judge panel decision, and as often as not the circuit decides to go en banc because many judges are unhappy about the 3-judge panel opinion, right?  So it probably doesn't pay to speculate at this point.