Supreme Court docket briefly pauses ruling on November SNAP funds

Up to date on Nov. 7 at 9:34 p.m.

The Trump administration on Friday evening asked the Supreme Court docket to pause a ruling by a federal choose in Rhode Island that requires the federal government to pay $4 billion to totally fund the federal food-stamp program for November. The “unprecedented” order by U.S. District Choose John J. McConnell, Jr. “makes a mockery of the separation of powers,” U.S. Solicitor Basic D. John Sauer wrote. Sauer acknowledged that the “funding lapse” as a result of 38-day authorities shutdown “is a disaster,” however he referred to as it “a disaster occasioned by congressional failure and one that may solely be solved by way of congressional motion.”

Sauer requested the court docket to difficulty an administrative keep – that’s, to place the ruling on maintain to provide it time to think about his request – by 9:30 p.m. EST on Friday.

Congress funds this system, often known as the Supplemental Dietary Help Program, throughout its annual appropriations course of. This system was absolutely funded by way of Sept. 30, 2025, the top of the 2025 fiscal 12 months, however there was no appropriation for the 2026 fiscal 12 months.

On Oct. 24, the U.S. Division of Agriculture, which administers this system, introduced that it had suspended advantages for November due to the federal government shutdown. That prompted a gaggle of nonprofits and cities to go to federal court docket in Rhode Island, the place they argued that the suspension of advantages violated the federal legal guidelines governing administrative businesses. They requested McConnell to require the company to make use of emergency funds to pay for the November advantages.

McConnell initially provided the Trump administration a selection between rapidly making partial funds from the emergency funds or absolutely funding the November advantages utilizing funds from different sources. The Trump administration selected the previous possibility, however on Thursday, McConnell ordered the Trump administration to go along with the latter possibility and pay the November advantages in full by Friday.

The Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the first Circuit. When it filed its utility, the court docket of appeals had not acted on the federal government’s request. In a letter distributed to reporters shortly after the Trump administration’s utility was filed, Sauer informed the justices that the first Circuit had denied the federal government’s request for an instantaneous administrative keep however indicated that it will act “as rapidly as doable” on the request for a keep pending attraction.

Urging the justices to dam McConnell’s ruling, Sauer argued that “the SNAP statute is specific that SNAP advantages are topic to out there appropriations, and it states plainly that SNAP funds shall not exceed the funds appropriated for this system.” If there may be not sufficient funding, he wrote, “USDA will direct States to scale back their advantages—which is strictly what USDA did this week.”

Furthermore, Sauer warned, if McConnell’s ruling is “allowed to face,” it can “metastasize and sow additional shutdown chaos. Each beneficiary of a federal program may run into court docket, level to an company’s basic discretion to prioritize funding, and declare that failing to prioritize their chosen program” violated the federal legislation governing administrative businesses.

Lastly, Sauer continued, as soon as the funds have been paid out, “there is no such thing as a prepared mechanism for the federal government to recuperate” them.

In an order launched to reporters at 9:17 p.m. EST on Friday evening, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the executive keep that the federal government had requested, giving the court docket of appeals time to weigh in on the Trump administration’s movement for a keep pending attraction. The order states that “[t]his administrative keep will terminate forty-eight hours after the First Circuit’s decision of the pending movement, which the First Circuit is anticipated to difficulty with dispatch.”