The GOP organizations appealed for a favorable emergency ruling from a three-judge panel on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled against them stating, "If 100 Democrats or 100 Republicans gather and ten get infected, those ten may go home and infect a local shopkeeper, a local grocery-store worker, their postal carrier, or their grandmother—someone who had no interest in the earlier gathering. Thus, the balance of harms in this instance strongly favors the governor." At the same time, large Black Lives Matter protests are allowed to continue despite the the same risk of COVID infections.

On July 4th, the GOP lawyers filed an emergency application for an injunction with Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh who denied it without comment.

The Supreme Court always has a justice on duty for emergencies, and on Saturday — Independence Day — Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, was on the job.