The full D.C. Circuit’s expected rejection of a transparently political attack on Affordable Care Act subsidies won’t happen, due to the Supreme Court’s decision last week to hear King v. Burwell, a Fourth Circuit case raising the same issue. This afternoon, the D.C. Circuit cancelled oral arguments scheduled for next month and put the case on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision in King.

ACA opponents launched similar cases in four different circuits, apparently hoping for a circuit split that would encourage the Roberts Court to take the case and (they hope) destroy Obamacare. It turns out they didn’t need to try nearly that hard: At least four Justices on the Roberts Court are so eager to take the case that they didn’t wait for a circuit split, or even for more than one circuit court to have a chance to address the issue. All that was needed was one case.

Assuming judges in other two circuits follow the D.C. Circuit’s lead and put their own cases on hold, then the Court’s so quickly taking the King case will have shut down the possibility of additional circuit courts exposing just how legally weak and transparently political the attack on the ACA subsidies is.