Here’s a summary of the article, adhering to the requested word count and format:
Key Takeaways
- The Trump administration sought Supreme Court intervention to block full SNAP benefits for November.
- This followed a District Court ruling requiring full funding, which the administration initially appeared to comply with.
- The legal battle stemmed from the government shutdown and its impact on food stamp recipients.
- The administration argued that the court order was untenable and that only congressional action could resolve the funding issue.
- Some states quickly moved to issue full SNAP payments, while others waited for further guidance, leading to funding discrepancies.
Summary
The Trump administration escalated the legal battle over food stamp benefits by filing an emergency request to the Supreme Court on Friday evening. This request aimed to block a lower court ruling that mandated the administration to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, for tens of millions of Americans in November. The move came just hours after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had seemingly begun the process of complying with the ruling issued by U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island, instructing states to fully fund the program.
This legal maneuver introduced further uncertainty into the already precarious situation for SNAP recipients, who were unsure whether they would receive their full benefits. The administration had previously appealed to a federal appeals court in Boston, but that court had not yet ruled when the USDA issued its guidance to states. The appeals court then declined to put the payments on hold temporarily while it reviewed the case. The administration then asked the Supreme Court to issue an immediate administrative hold.
In its emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, the administration argued that a lapse in funding would create a "crisis." They also argued that the crisis was caused by the Congressional failure to take the needed legislative actions. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the district court’s ruling was fundamentally flawed.
The legal fight over food stamps intensified due to the prolonged government shutdown. The shutdown left nearly 42 million Americans who rely on food benefits wondering when they would receive them. The court battles over these benefits is one of the most tangible impacts of the impasse so far.
The request to the Supreme Court further complicated the distribution of billions of dollars in SNAP funding. Before the latest legal development, some states had already begun issuing full SNAP payments to their residents. This caused issues, according to the administration’s filing to the Supreme Court.
Sauer informed the court that Wisconsin immediately requested 100% of its residents’ benefits to be placed on their electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards. However, the USDA rejected the request because it had not yet had time to fully comply with McConnell’s order. As a result, the state overdrew its letter of credit by $20 million. Similarly, Kansas issued full benefits worth nearly $32 million to approximately 86,000 households.
According to Sauer, these actions harmed states that did not move quickly to issue benefits, because they will not be able to receive funding to provide partial payments to their residents under McConnell’s prior order. Other states, however, had promised beneficiaries they would start receiving their full allotments soon.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced that SNAP benefits this month will be issued to electronic benefit transfer cards. Meanwhile, the governors of Maryland and New York said beneficiaries could expect to start seeing their benefits soon.
The food stamp program has been in legal limbo since last month, when officials said recipients would not receive their payments for November due to the lapse in appropriations for the government. This led to two lawsuits, and two federal judges ruled that the agency must provide partial benefits for this month or, at its discretion, use other revenue to fully fund November’s allotments.
The agency opted to fund partial benefits, but warned it could take weeks or months for some states to recalculate the allotments and distribute the assistance. The plaintiffs in the Rhode Island case raced back to McConnell earlier this week to argue that he should require the USDA to fully fund the benefits to get the money out the door quickly.
McConnell ruled that the administration had not worked fast enough to ensure at least partial benefits reached millions of the program’s recipients and that it had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when it decided against providing the full benefits this month. Under McConnell’s ruling, the government was required to transfer additional unused tariff revenue used to support child nutrition programs in order to pay full SNAP benefits for November.
