SCOTUS Blocks Order for Full SNAP Payments
It's not what you think.
AP (“Supreme Court issues emergency order to block full SNAP food aid payments“):
The Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to temporarily block a court order to fully fund SNAP food aid payments amid the government shutdown, even though residents in some states already have received the funds.
A judge had given the Republican administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the administration asked an appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP payments for the month.
When I first saw the news, my reaction was that the Republican supermajority court was using the Shadow Docket to rule in favor of President Trump yet again. It turns out, there’s a plot twist.
After a Boston appeals court declined to immediately intervene, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an order late Friday pausing the requirement to distribute full SNAP payments until the appeals court rules on whether to issue a more lasting pause. Jackson handles emergency matters from Massachusetts.
Her order will remain in place until 48 hours after the appeals court rules, giving the administration time to return to the Supreme Court if the appeals court refuses to step in.
While SNAP payments are mandatory spending under Federal law, the administration contends that Congress must still appropriate the funds.
Because of the federal government shutdown, the Trump administration originally had said SNAP benefits would not be available in November. However, two judges ruled last week that the administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely because of the shutdown. One of those judges was U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr., who ordered the full payments Thursday.
In both cases, the judges ordered the government to use one emergency reserve fund containing more than $4.6 billion to pay for SNAP for November but gave it leeway to tap other money to make the full payments, which cost between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month.
On Monday, the administration said it would not use additional money, saying it was up to Congress to appropriate the funds for the program and that the other money was needed to shore up other child hunger programs.
Thursday’s federal court order rejected the Trump administration’s decision to cover only 65% of the maximum monthly benefit, a decision that could have left some recipients getting nothing for this month.
In its court filings Friday, Trump’s administration contended that the judge usurped both legislative and executive authority in ordering SNAP benefits to be fully funded.
“This unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers,” Sauer told the Supreme Court.
Jackson’s order states, “This administrative stay will terminate forty-eight hours after the First Circuit’s resolution of the pending motion, which the First Circuit is expected to issue with dispatch.” So, we’ll see how quickly that happens.
Steve Vladeck has a good explainer. If I understand it, if Jackson bumped it to the Court right now, it’d be a quick 5/4 in favor of Trump. Best she can do in lousy circumstances is delay a bit and give the Circuit a chance to write a stronger decision.
The following anecdote reveals the astonishing make-believe world in which the MAGA rank and file live. When it was pointed out on a discussion board that the regime had no trouble finding money to pay the military, several responded with a sneer that it came from “a private donation”.
It’s true that Timothy Mellon (inexplicably) donated $130 million to pay the troops’ wages. It’s also true that the Pentagon’s monthly wage and salary bill is about $9 billion. The news media has published numerous stories about Trump ordering Hegseth to find the money from somewhere, followed by reports of the various places he found it. But MAGA cultists, thoroughly conditioned by now to believe their preferred narrative regardless of its disconnect from reality, ignored the truth completely.
@gVOR10: Like the tariffs case, a legal victory for Trump will cause him more political damage. ‘TRUMP FIGHTS IN COURT TO STOP FEEDING POOR AMERICANS’ ads will write themselves.