President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday evening to block a lower court ruling that required the administration to fully cover food stamp benefits for tens of millions of Americans in November.
The emergency request to the justices came hours after an administration official announced that it was working to comply with the ruling to fully fund the program that was issued a day earlier by US District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island.
The administration had made a similar emergency appeal to a Boston-based federal appeals court Friday morning, but the court had not yet weighed in by the time the US Department of Agriculture sent guidance to states that said it was working to comply with McConnell’s directive. The appeals court, in a brief order Friday night, declined to put the payments on hold temporarily while it reviewed the case “as quickly as possible.”
The administration asked the Supreme Court to issue an immediate, administrative hold on the case by 9:30 p.m. ET.
“Such a funding lapse is a crisis,” the administration told the Supreme Court in its emergency appeal. “But it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure and one that can only be solved through congressional action.”
“The district court’s ruling,” US Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court, “is untenable at every turn.”
The legal fight over food stamps has emerged as a central pressure point between all three branches during the historically long government shutdown because it is one of the easiest to understand and most tangible impacts of that impasse so far. At stake are food benefits that millions of Americans rely on.
It’s unclear how the request to the Supreme Court could impact the billions of dollars in federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as food stamps are formally known. Several states confirmed Friday that individuals who rely on the program should soon start seeing their full payments.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
