Appeals court rejects Trump bid to halt full payments

a fcourt of appeals In Boston, for a second time late Sunday, the Trump administration’s request to block a lower court judge’s order to pay full SNAP benefits to 42 million Americans during the government shutdown was flatly denied.

But the judge’s decision remains on hold until at least Tuesday night due to the Supreme Court’s previous ruling.

This gives the administration time to return to the Supreme Court and request a permanent stay of the decision until the case is appealed.

The decision made by the three-judge panel of the 1st Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals on Sunday came one day after the hearing. US Department of Agriculture He threatened states that have provided all the aid since Friday with financial penalties if they do not “claw back” those payments.

And it came hours after the Senate narrowly took the first step toward a bipartisan agreement that could reopen the government in a matter of days and fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by next September.

“In reviewing the district court’s balancing of the equities, we cannot ignore certain events that preceded this case,” District Court Judge Julie Rikelman wrote in the panel’s decision Sunday. “As the district court found, ‘this is a problem that could have been prevented.'”

“The record here shows that the government stood helpless for nearly a month, unprepared to make partial payments, while people relying on SNAP received no benefits until November and the following week,” Rikelman wrote.

“In light of these unique facts, we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion in requiring full payment of November SNAP benefits to give effect to the October 31 regulation. [temporary restraining order after the government had failed to comply with it.”

The Trump administration on Oct. 24 broke decades of precedent when it said it would not pay SNAP benefits in November because Congress had not appropriated money for the program, or any other government program, past the date the shutdown began, Oct. 1. Past administrations had paid SNAP benefits in full during other shutdowns.

The administration rejected the idea of the remaining $4.6 billion in a contingency fund that Congress had specifically allocated to backstop SNAP.

A group of plaintiffs, comprised of nonprofits, local governments, a union, and a food retailer, sued the administration in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island seeking a judicial order forcing the administration to use the contingency fund and other pools of money to fully fund SNAP benefits.

Judge Jack McConnell, who is overseeing the case, ordered the administration to make at least partial benefits as soon as possible by tapping the contingency fund, and to investigate if other money could be used.

McConnell on Thursday ordered that the administration pay full benefits, days after the administration told him it would pay only partial benefits — but that it would take some time to do so — and told him that it had ruled out using so-called Section 32 funds.

McConnell ordered that the administration use Section 32 funds to make up the difference between the 65% of benefits the administration planned to pay by using the contingency fund and the full value of the benefits. SNAP benefits cost about $8 billion each month.

The administration then asked the 1st Circuit for a temporary stay of McConnell’s order on an emergency basis, which the appeals court rejected on Friday.

But the appeals court at the same time also said it was still considering the “government’s motion for a stay pending appeal [of McConnell’s order] … and we plan to issue a decision on this motion as soon as possible.”

On Friday night, at the administration’s request, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stayed McConnell’s order from taking effect and told the 1st Circuit to quickly rule on the stay request pending appeal.

Jackson’s order paused any decision issued by the 1st Circuit from going into effect for 48 hours.