UPDATED: Supreme Court Issues Stay in Response to Trump Admin Emergency Appeal of SNAP Case


Supreme Court Halts SNAP Case Amid Trump's Emergency Appeal: Latest Updates

UPDATE [9:44 PM Eastern]: On Friday night, the U.S. Supreme Court implemented an administrative stay following the Trump administration’s urgent appeal concerning the SNAP funding case.

For further insights, our colleague Professor Margot Cleveland provides more details:

Original Story

As reported by RedState late Thursday, a federal district court mandated that the Trump administration disburse full SNAP benefits for November, with a compliance deadline of 24 hours. In response, the administration swiftly appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit:

 110725zr_pnk0  by  lowertheboom00 


original story

As RedState wrote late Thursday afternoon, a federal district court ordered the Trump administration to pay out full SNAP benefits for the month of November, requiring it to comply within 24 hours. They quickly appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit:

On Thursday, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to resume USDA financial support of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Again.


SEE: Federal Judge Orders USDA to Fully Fund SNAP Program


But on Friday afternoon, the appeals court brought the bad news:

[The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ] on Friday denied a Trump administration request to temporarily block a lower court ruling requiring the government to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program amid the government shutdown. 

This comes just after the Agriculture Department (USDA) released a memo to all state administrators of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that it will work to provide full funding for Nov. on Friday. One report stated that the “USDA wrote in the memo that ‘later today’ it will ‘complete the processes necessary’ to make funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program available.”

Immediately, the administration filed an emergency petition at the United States Supreme Court, asking for a decision from the justices before 9:30 PM Eastern tonight. 

A Trump administration spokesperson told Fox News, in the story linked above, “Given the imminent, irreparable harms posed by these orders, which require the government to transfer an estimated $4 billion by tonight, the Solicitor General respectfully requests an immediate administrative stay of the orders pending the resolution of this application by no later than 9:30 pm this evening.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi also reacted to the ruling after the DOJ sent the petition to SCOTUS Friday, calling the judge’s order “judicial activism at its worst.” She continued in a string of X posts:

A single district court in Rhode Island should not be able to seize center stage in the shutdown, seek to upend political negotiations that could produce swift political solutions for SNAP and other programs, and dictate its own preferences for how scarce federal funds should be spent.

With hours to go before the TRO compliance clock runs, and the First Circuit waiting to deny immediate relief until minutes ago, we have filed an emergency stay application in the Supreme Court requesting immediate relief.

Bondi also quoted the filing:

“The core power of Congress is that of the purse, while the Executive is tasked with allocating limited resources across competing priorities,” the brief reads. “But here, the court below took the current shutdown as 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.”

You can read the full petition here.

This is a breaking story. RedState will provide updates as more information becomes available.

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