Judge orders administration to distribute SNAP contingency money amid shutdown

> SNAP is just a cash transfer.

Id argue that not having food because you didn't receive a needed cash transfer, esspecially when children are affected would definitely constitute "Irreparable harm."

Biden and Obama appointees ruling against the admin, probably to be overturned by republican nominated judges. Have judges gotten more partisan recently or has it always been like this.

Hopefully some people at least get money for food in the mean time.

Since SNAP is a national program you can file a lawsuit anywhere. The groups that sue the Trump admin know this. That's why they filed suit in Rhode Island which is part of the 1st circuit where you are almost guaranteed to get a liberal judge.

am I suppossed to have an issue with someone having their groceries paid for by snap can now afford rent and maintenence costs for their home?

I was reading interviews with people who said they were likely going to have to skip either rent or their car payment to afford food next month. Both of those seem irreparable to me - late fees, credit score impact, possibility of losing housing or essential transportation to be able to work...

Ugh, I might just be adding to the frustration here. But honestly I don’t understand why we’re not talking about how bad partisan politics is. It baffles my mind that we agreed a total population percentage of about 0.00015609% will choose our countries fate. I get that higher numbers don’t necessarily translate to efficiency, but California Republicans aren’t the same as Massachusetts Republicans and the same goes to Democrats.

> Irreparable harm can NEVER be about money

You know people get evicted if they don’t pay rent right? Like if you don’t have enough money to pay rent because you had to feed yourself your landlord can have armed police forcibly remove you from their property.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those people that inexplicably live outdoors, but it may surprise you to learn that not being able to pay rent is a common cause for not having a place to live. It is shocking but true

It would be a good time for federalism advocates to make their voices heard. There's no reason to cede this power to the federal government.

What power are you talking about here?

The power to withhold money paid by taxes intended to benefit state residents.

> Biden and Obama appointees ruling against the admin, probably to be overturned by republican nominated judges.

These two judges were Biden- and Obama-appointed judges but Trump had been losing on executive overreach before Reagan-, Bush- (both) and even Trump-appointed district judges fairly regularly, too.

> Not irreparable hard. Irreparable harm can NEVER be about money because you can always get the money later.

I can certainly imagine scenarios where failing to get poverty food aid cannot be adequately remedied by any amount of money later.

> If this causes irreparable harm, then by the same precedent, the government would never be allowed to reduce spending on any program that could reduce poor people's income

Uh, irreparable harm is just one of several elements of the test for whether a preliminary injunction is warranted while a case is being litigated. It is not, on its own, a bar to government action (otherwise, the death penalty would be illegal without having to make 8th Amendment arguments because it may be debatable whether it is cruel and unusual punishment, but that it is irreparable harm is unmistakable.)

So, no, that's not what this precedent (were it a precedential ruling of law rather than a fact finding by a trial court whose rulings would not be precedential in any case) would mean.

That could describe anything the federal government does. It doesn’t helpfully separate state versus federal.

It has become like this slowly over time but it is still pretty recent. Within the last 20 years. It became especially bad starting in 2016. I feel like that election caused a lot of institutions to start becoming partisan and also to start abusing every power or loophole or whatever.

The 10th amendment restrains what the federal government can do. By taxing and administering SNAP, they deprive the states and people the rights reserved to them by the constitution. The federal powers are pretty narrow, and the amount of taxes that can be sustained upon the populace finite. By usurping taxation and distribution of extra-constitutional federal powers, they deprive states the ability to administer it themselves.

The question would be, is that as-applied or a generalized presumption? I can imagine scenarios as well, but if you look at say gaza, it doesn't break out of the statistical noise until they were starved for like 6 weeks.

If you look at many other injunctions for irreparable harm, like a lot of the gun rights cases, they would only apply it to the actual groups that sued like "members of second amendment foundation" as it can be too difficult to generalize to the entire populace. I suspect this might apply for snap; a judge may find some certain families could undergo irreparable harm but not perhaps rule the entire class of people receiving it would yet.

Not sure how it is in places other than Virginia, but added to the confusion created by the orders (yay, judges for ordering use of the designated funds!) is a question about when the state will decide to implement a temporary food program that is supposed to start Monday.

And, like everywhere else, many food pantry shelves are empty.

>there’s rampant abuse of this and other programs - and weirdly, lots of people admitting to this in social media.

oh yes, a few hundred people getting som eextra food constitutes an egregious waste of taxes that warrant our collective outrage

as oppossed to..

* a lavicious birthday/military parade

* a ballroom bigger than the white house being built while air traffic controllers arent' being paid

* billions of dollars being sent to subsidize argeninian beef

* billions sent to a theorcratic nationstate hell bent on committing genocide

This was the argument when the ACA (specifically the medicare changes) went before The Supreme Court! End running around the constitution via the tax and spend power by taxing money out of states and then giving it back with strings. And it's one I happen to agree with. It's a crazy overreach by the federal government and it's being made so much worse today when the executive can ad hoc attach even more strings else withhold the money. So you at least have "my point was argued before the Supreme Court" as a source of legitimacy.

It's bad enough when Congress and federal agencies attach strings like this but when the executive, like literally the man not the branch, can effectively unilaterally write laws enforced by withholding unrelated funds we've reached a whole new level of throwing out the separation of powers.

This is precisely why the federal government shouldn't have as much power as it currently does in my opinion. Every layer of indirection is reduction in representation. If not for the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 it wouldn't be as bad, but as things currently are, I see polarization as inevitable.

> weirdly, lots of people admitting to this in social media.

How do you know those aren't bots?

The last 20 years because of social media. The algorithmic echo chambers that people have created with their feeds has increased the divide.

Nope, long before that. It just took a long time for the results to become clear. Mitch McConnell has basically spent his entire political career working towards exactly where we are now: every branch of the government controlled by republicans.

Bro, you need to encounter someone barely surviving on SNAP out there. It will totally change your perspective.

>there’s rampant abuse of this and other programs - and weirdly, lots of people admitting to this in social media.

I think a good chunk of how we got here is people defining words like “rampant” to mean “I saw it on my phone”. This statement is literally “this is happening everywhere all the time in overwhelming amounts. I know this because it was on the apps on my phone”

The crux remains "is this the kind of emergency that Congress authorized Disaster SNAP (DSNAP) funds to be disbursed?"

It is in US Code 2027(a)(2):

- https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/2027

Let me expand ...

A shutdown due to insufficient vote is not considered a national disaster enough to trigger DSNAP disbursrment.

President, by Congressional law, are not authorized to disburse SNAP nor DSNAP during shutdown.

I know what you are thinking "but, But, ... BUT it's emergency SNAP", but it isn't: it's for a DISASTER SNAP.

So, my bet is a criminal judge making a administrative ruling will most likely be remanded by SCOTUS as to rewrite it (in which that renegade judge will be unable to do so), then get batted down by SCOTUS.

Emergency - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/5122

DSNAP - https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/part-280/section-280.1

> establish temporary emergency standards of eligibility for the duration of the emergency for households who are victims of a disaster which disrupts commercial channels of food distribution

I thought we are all victims of a disaster, including with commercial food distribution, hence the need for these emergency tariff actions? (Half tongue-in-cheek)

But on a more serious note, it’d be interesting to see what happens when emergency actions start interfering with interpretation of other emergency actions.

Do recognize that we already have many, many levers to pull to remove an administration that is not acting in the best interest of the people

The problem is:

1) We never actually want to pull the levers

2) While some early politicians expressed concern about party politics, for nearly 250 years there have been very few actual changes that recognize the harm of very cohesive party politics. If anything, changes were made to further entrench the system (the competitive game of admitting states in the 19th century, rules that only recognize 2 major political parties at the state and federal level, etc)

Natural disaster is one Federal definition.

I think we await the appelate to chime in as to whether Congressional shutdown qualifies as "natural disaster".

I think that is a reach, and by design.

Yes. And the fundamental problem is that the federal government has too much power. So everything it describes should be considered in this light.

Unsurprisingly, there is not often a consensus by the federal government to reduce its own power or for people whose tribe is in power to suggest that they devolve some of it back to the states.

A disaster of human nature but not of Nature herself.

No. Just natural disaster for DSNAP (Disaster SNAP, Stafford Act).

Hurricanes: 2017 (Harvey, Irma, Maria)

• Wildfires: 2021 (CA)

• Floods: 2008, 2022, 2025

• Tornadoes: 2025 (KY)

• Mudslides / Landslides: 2022, 2025

• Severe storms: 2025 (AR, WV, KY)

• Winter storms: 2023 (CA)

• Tropical storms: 2024 (NC, Tropical Storm Helene)