Trump Admin Urges Supreme Court to Block Order on Food Stamps

The Trump administration on Nov. 10 urged the Supreme Court to extend a block on an order requiring it to pay in full for the federal food stamp program.

An appeals court wrongly ruled that the administration must pay about $9 billion to fully fund the program for November, lawyers for the government said in a brief to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Judge John McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island on Nov. 7 ordered the government to fully pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), finding that officials did not comply with a previous order that they either partially or fully fund November benefits using at least $4 billion from a contingency fund.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined to block that order, which required the government to draw from a second tranche of money containing tariff revenue. Jackson stayed the order later on Nov. 7 until 48 hours after the appeals court issued a ruling explaining its decision.

That ruling was released on Nov. 9, and circuit judges said they would not intervene in part because the government is unlikely to succeed in its appeal.

Trump administration lawyers then turned to Jackson, requesting that she extend the stay on the order and a similar decision as Congress negotiates an end to the government shutdown.

“The government unequivocally agrees that any lapse in SNAP funding is tragic. But it is a tragedy of Congress’s creation, by shutting the government down, allowing appropriations to lapse, and creating a Hobson’s choice for the Executive Branch on how to triage which crucial programs get limited available residual funds,” they wrote in the supplemental brief lodged on Nov. 10.

“Congress appears to be on the brink of breaking the deadlock, though that outcome is unsure. The district court’s unlawful orders risk upsetting that compromise and throwing into doubt how innumerable critical federal programs will be funded—a point on the equities that escaped the court of appeals. This Court should stay these wrongful edicts to let the political process that is rapidly playing out reach its conclusion.”

Officials previously argued that judges cannot compel the government to spend money that has not been appropriated for SNAP.

The Rhode Island State Council of Churches and other groups that sued the government over its decision not to pay for the November benefits will have until early on Nov. 11 to respond to the government’s supplemental brief. They have argued that officials must use money from the contingency fund and tariff revenues to pay for SNAP in full.

The brief came after the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP with states, said that states that sent full payments to beneficiaries should work to undo steps taken to that effect.

Lawyers for Massachusetts and other states that brought a separate case against the government told the judge overseeing the related case over the weekend that under the new guidance, the department “may not force Plaintiffs to ‘undo’ actions they took to make SNAP benefits available to their residents pursuant to a Court Order and USDA guidance; and may not take steps to penalize Plaintiffs for failing to ‘undo’ such actions, particularly during the pendency of this litigation.”

Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts said in an electronic order on Nov. 10 that the department’s new guidance was stayed pending further court order.