Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson granted the Trump administration’s request Friday night to halt a lower court’s order to issue full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits using funds intended for child nutrition.
Jackson granted the request to halt the order pending a ruling on a stay pending appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, writing in her order that the administrative stay will expire 48 hours after the First Circuit issues its ruling.
The petition to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket came less than an hour after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined to grant an administrative stay of U.S. District Judge John McConnell’s Thursday order that Section 32 Child Nutrition Funds be used to issue full SNAP benefits by Friday. In its order denying the administrative stay earlier this evening, the First Circuit stated that it would still consider the request for a stay pending appeal, promising a decision on it “as quickly as possible.”
Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the high court to issue an administrative stay of the lower court’s orders by 9:30 p.m. Friday. Jackson’s order was posted roughly 13 minutes before that time.
Sauer asserted SNAP may only be funded using the SNAP contingency reserve, which would cover roughly half of the benefits for November, and that McConnell’s order to use Section 32 funds to issue full SNAP benefits is unlawful.
“That unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers. The core power of Congress is that of the purse, while the Executive is tasked with allocating limited resources across competing priorities,” Sauer wrote in the petition.
“But here, the court below took the current shutdown as an effective license to declare a federal bankruptcy and appoint itself the trustee, charged with picking winners and losers among those seeking some part of the limited pool of remaining federal funds,” Sauer added. “The district court’s ruling is untenable at every turn.”
Sauer warned that if the high court allowed McConnell’s order to stand, it would “sow further shutdown chaos” with groups attempting to force funding to their favored programs via court orders.
“Courts would issue unworkable and potentially conflicting injunctions, as different judges order different allocations of limited pools of money,” Sauer wrote. “District courts’ seizure of the power to allocate federal agency funds as they see fit would also invite a run on the bank by way of judicial fiat during this shutdown, as litigants race to courthouse to obtain their guarantee of federal funds before it is too late.”
Sauer urged the high court to issue its ruling quickly, noting that it is currently required to use Section 32 funding to send full SNAP benefits by tonight due to McConnell’s order.
JUDGE ORDERS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO USE CHILD NUTRITION FUNDS TO ISSUE FULL SNAP BENEFITS
“Once those billions are out the door, there is no ready mechanism for the government to recover those funds—to the significant detriment of those other critical social programs whose budgets the district court ordered the government to raid,” Sauer wrote.
With the government shutdown now the longest in history and with no clear end in sight, the administration had warned that SNAP benefits would not be paid out for November. The announcement prompted multiple lawsuits and orders requiring the administration to use other funds to pay for SNAP. The administration has maintained that only congressionally appropriated SNAP funds may lawfully be used for the program.
