The post Supreme Court to rule on funding of November food stamp benefits first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.
]]>Key Points:
Food stamp recipients will have to wait until Nov. 13 — if not later — to know whether the U.S. Supreme Court believes they’re entitled to their full November benefits.
In a brief order, the U.S. Supreme Court acceded to a request by the Trump administration to at least temporarily block enforcement of an order by a lower court judge to fund the full November allotment for each of the 42 million Americans who qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP.
That administrative “stay” runs only through 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 13.
But the justices gave no indication of how they are leaning on the underlying question of how much authority a federal court judge has to tell the USDA how to spend its money — or what that might mean to food stamp recipients.
All this relates to the claim by the Trump administration that the government shutdown left the USDA with no money— and no authority — to make November payments.
Judges in two separate federal courts rejected that contention.
They pointed out the agency has about $5 billion in contingency funds. And they ruled that, at the very least, the USDA has to tap that fund.
The government eventually conceded that point, saying that what is in that account was enough to provide November benefits at 65% of what recipients normally get.
But any effort at a resolution fell apart when the agency told U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell that the calculations necessary to make partial payments would delay recipients getting anything for weeks — or months. That, the judge said, was unacceptable.
He then ordered the USDA to make full payments. More to the point — and at the heart of what is before the high court — is that McConnell directed the agency to make up the difference by diverting another $4 billion it has in the Child Nutrition programs that provide free and reduced-price meals to school children.
Attorneys for the administration want the justices to rule that order to move funds from one congressionally funded program to another is beyond McConnell’s authority.
Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency actions in that area of the country, agreed to an initial stay of McConnell’s order to give both sides the chance to file legal briefs on the issue and give her colleagues time to consider — and possibly rule — on the legal issue.
But they apparently weren’t quite ready on Nov. 11, so they issued the order to keep the legal stay in place through the night of Nov. 13.
Only Jackson voted against the extension, saying she was ready to rule against further delaying McConnell’s order to provide full benefits.
Legal issues aside, there could be another reason for the decision by the justices to put off a decision.
Attorneys for the government pointed out that there appears to be a deal to end the congressional shutdown. And that deal, they said, could include enacting a new budget, including finally allocating the full $9 billion for November food stamps.
Such congressional action could allow the justices to sidestep the thorny legal issues about how much power judges have to tell federal agencies how to spend their dollars.
What delaying a final decision on McConnell’s order means to Arizonans, however, is less than clear.
Gubernatorial press aide Christian Slater said he believes a majority of the state’s 900,000 SNAP recipients already have had their full November allocation loaded onto their Electronic Benefit Transfer cards. And he said it is anticipated that the rest should have their benefits by Nov. 13.
All that occurred after another federal judge in a parallel case, one in which Arizona is a plaintiff, ordered the USDA to fully fund benefits.
But the agency contends that the directive by Judge Indira Talwani is not the last word.
The USDA claims that states like Arizona which got access to federal dollars for full benefits will have to refund any amount above the 65% already approved.
How the agency would get the money back, however, is another question. At this point, SNAP recipients may already have spent their full November allocation, a figure that state officials say runs about $360 a month.
The post Supreme Court to rule on funding of November food stamp benefits first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.
]]>The post Legal battle over SNAP benefits puts Arizona in a bind first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.
]]>Arizona could be in trouble — and owe some money to the federal government — over food stamp benefits being loaded to debit cards of recipients during the ongoing legal effort by the Trump administration to keep states from fully paying benefits during the government shutdown.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture over the weekend demanded that states “undo” full benefits that were paid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during a window between when a federal judge ordered full funding and a Supreme Court justice put a temporary pause on that order.
Late Nov. 9, a federal appeals court left that order for full benefits in place. But a U.S. Supreme Court order ensures that nothing will change for at least 48 hours.
“The record here shows that the government sat on its hands for nearly a month, unprepared to make partial payments, while people who rely on SNAP received no benefits a week into November and counting,” wrote Judge Julie Rikleman of the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals.
But the Trump administration is expected to again seek U.S. Supreme Court review. And Congress could consider fully funding SNAP as part of a proposal to end the government shutdown.
In Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs said she directed state officials to take “swift action” to add the full November benefits to cards. That followed a federal court ruling ordering the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fully fund the benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs for all 42 million Americans who are eligible.
But late the next day, an official from the U.S. Department of Agriculture sent a note to states noting that the U.S. Supreme Court had agreed to delay that order to allow the agency to appeal. And Patrick Penn, deputy undersecretary of the agency’s Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, said all that is allowed at this point is for states to load the Electronic Benefit Transfer Card with 65% of what recipients would normally get — what USDA can afford to pay with its contingency dollars.
“To the extent states sent full SNAP benefit payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” he wrote. Penn also said that states “must immediately undo” any steps taken to load full benefits onto those EBT cards.
And if states ignore his warning, Penn said they could face penalties, including “holding states liable for any overissuances that result from the noncompliance.”
That threat, however, was placed on hold early Nov. 10.
In a brief order, U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary restraining order blocking the USDA from enforcing its order that states undo any processes to issue full benefits or face any threats. And she has scheduled a hearing to hear arguments.
Christian Slater, the governor’s press aide, said his boss did nothing wrong in directing that full benefits be loaded onto cards.
“It was done in response to guidance by the USDA,” he said.
How clear was that “guidance,” however, could end up being debated in court if the feds ask for their money back.
The agency did say in a memo it was “working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances” to comply with a federal court order. And it said that later that day the agency “will complete the processes necessary to make funds available” so that states can send necessary files to the agencies that process EBT card payments.
But USDA officials said those steps — ones they contend the states should have waited on — were never taken after the agency appealed the ruling. And in an order late Nov. 7, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson put McConnell’s order on hold to allow a federal appeals court to review his ruling.
That, in turn, led to the USDA memo on Nov. 8 telling states that if they’re providing more than the partial benefits that can be financed with the contingency dollars they can be held liable.
Slater said Arizona did nothing wrong in going ahead. He said the state was complying with the Nov. 7 order.
More to the point, Slater said there were no specific instructions telling states not to go ahead with loading the funds just yet.
He said he did not immediately know, however, how many of the nearly 900,000 Arizonans already have had November benefits loaded onto their cards and whether they are getting full benefits — the average about $360 a month per household in Arizona — or just the 65% that the Trump administration is no longer challenging. What is known is that food stamps are paid for entirely from federal dollars and that full benefits for Arizonans run about $160 million a month.
On Nov. 10, Hobbs made it clear she was miffed about “more whiplash and confusion as the Trump administration demanded those benefits be retracted and callously challenged a court order that told them to do the right thing: pay SNAP benefits in full.”
Even if the Nov. 7 memo can be interpreted to tell states to proceed with loading full benefits onto EBT cards, the administration says governors should have known better and were already on notice — on Nov. 6, the day before Hobbs’ directive — that the legal fight wasn’t over.
In a letter to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, Laura Myron, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, pointed out that the USDA already had filed a notice of appeal at about 5:15 p.m. on Nov. 6 — presumably East Coast time — of McConnell’s order for full benefits.
“To the extent that states decided to submit their files early — knowing that defendants had appealed the court’s injunction and intended to seek a stay, and in the face of direction to the contrary — they are responsible for the consequences of that action,” she wrote.
An aide to Attorney General Kris Mayes said Arizona SNAP recipients who have funds in their accounts for November should not be deterred by all the legal maneuvering from using their EBT cards.
“So people are likely spending their benefits,” said Richie Taylor. “Obviously, the attorney general believes if people have money on their cards and need to buy food for their families they should do that.”
And Taylor made it clear that Mayes, who is one of the lead plaintiffs in one of the two cases challenging efforts to deny or delay benefits, is not going to let the feds penalize the state.
“The attorney general will absolutely fight any attempt to hold states liable for the federal government’s dereliction of their duties,” he said.
All this stems from two separate rulings by federal judges that rejected the USDA’s claims that the government shutdown at the end of October and Congress’s failure to allocate more dollars for SNAP meant it need not make any November payments at all.
In both cases, the judges pointed out that the agency has more than $5 billion in a contingency fund. And they rejected the claim that those dollars could not be used to fill the gap.
One of the judges, John McConnell Jr., gave the administration an option: Immediately use the contingency funds to begin payments immediately or fully fund benefits — at a cost of up to $9 billion — using other available dollars. And in the latter case, he would give USDA some additional time.
McConnell said the agency agreed to pursue the first option, with the administration apparently conceding that it is legally obligated to use at least those contingency dollars. But he said that never happened after the USDA concluded that there are “procedural difficulties” in making partial SNAP payments, which could “take anywhere from a few weeks to up to several months” to send out.
What also apparently annoyed the judge was that, despite his initial order, President Trump later made a statement on social media that SNAP benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before.”
“The court is not naive to the administration’s true motivations,” McConnell wrote, saying it is “clear that the administration is withholding full SNAP benefits for political purposes.
The post Legal battle over SNAP benefits puts Arizona in a bind first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.
]]>The post Hobbs to distribute $1.8M in COVID funds to aid food banks amid SNAP cuts first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.
]]>Gov. Katie Hobbs is allocating $1.8 million from leftover federal COVID funds to help the nearly 900,000 Arizonans who won’t receive food stamp benefits in November due to a federal government shutdown.
In a prepared announcement on Oct. 29, the governor said $1.5 million of that will be divided up among food banks across the state which are expected to be hard hit once the benefits dry up.
Hobbs acknowledged that it is just a fraction of the more than $161 million that now goes to Arizonans. It also compares with the $45 million in donations that St. Mary’s Food Bank, the largest in the state, already receives.
But the governor said she’s hoping to leverage more aid by encouraging people to donate directly to food banks and volunteer there. And Hobbs said she is calling on retailers, grocers and the state’s fresh produce industry to contribute food and logistical resources.
Another $300,000 is going into a newly created Food Bucks Now program.
It is modeled after the existing Double Up Food Bucks program, which provides a dollar-for-dollar match when food stamp recipients use their benefits at local farmers markets. There also is a similar option that can be used at grocery stores, though the match is for money spent on fresh fruits and vegetables.
The only thing is, with SNAP benefits gone, there is no balance on recipients’ cards to double.
By contrast, the Food Bucks Now program, also operated by Pinnacle Prevention in connection with the Department of Economic Security, lets individuals bring their SNAP debit cards to participating locations to get a $10 voucher each day to double their fruit and vegetable purchase,s as well as a separate $30 voucher for any SNAP-eligible foods.
Finding a participating location, however, may be difficult.
A website designed to help shows a few grocery stores, like the Plaza Mobile Market in Tucson and the Tonto Basin Market IGA.
But most of the sites are farmers markets, many of which are open only on weekends or during certain hours. And there are large swaths of the state with no such locations.
The program is good through November. But promotional materials note that demand is expected to exceed the $300,000 available.
All that compares with data from DES, that puts the average monthly benefit for a family at $358.
Hobbs’ announcement came with a slap from her and other Democrats, who criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture for refusing to use money from its contingency fund to continue benefits, at least into November, despite the federal government shutdown and the lack of an appropriation for the program.
It is estimated that there is between $5 billion and $6 billion in the account; USDA estimates it costs about $9 billion per month.
“It is appalling that the Trump administration is choosing to withhold food from vulnerable Arizona families, using them as leverage in their political games,” she said in her prepared statement. “The state of Arizona does not have the money to backfill the disastrous decisions being made by Washington Republicans.”
USDA officials have said those contingency dollars are designed to provide help in cases of natural disasters and cannot be spent simply because Congress has failed to approve a new budget.
That contention, however, is being disputed by Attorney General Kris Mayes.
She cited memos and other documents from the agency making it clear that those dollars can be used in the event of a government shutdown. And she and other Democratic officials have filed suit asking a federal judge to order the USDA to dip into the fund.
Mayes separately is urging Hobbs to call lawmakers into special session to tap the state’s $1.6 billion “rainy day fund,” dollars set aside to deal with unforeseen emergencies.
“If this is not a rainy day, I’m not sure what is,” the attorney general said.
Hobbs, however, has so far been noncommittal.
“The Governor’s Office is considering all available options,” said Christian Slater, the governor’s press aide.
Hobbs’ announcement of $1.8 million in grants comes less than a week after she brushed aside a question about why she was not using COVID relief dollars to address the loss of SNAP benefits.
“The Covid money is very much exhausted,” she said at the time.
The post Hobbs to distribute $1.8M in COVID funds to aid food banks amid SNAP cuts first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.
]]>The post Arizona governor says state lacks resources to replace food stamp cuts first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.
]]>Gov. Katie Hobbs says the nearly 900,000 Arizonans receiving food stamps should not look to her or the state for help if benefits dry up next week due to a government shutdown. Instead, she is looking to others outside of state government.
“We’re going to really count on our nonprofit social service community to step up and be partners,” she said. But any way you look at it, the governor said, “it’s going to be very challenging for Arizonans.”
The latest figures show more than 450,000 households in Arizona rely on what is formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That includes nearly 900,000 individuals and more than 367,000 children.
“Arizona doesn’t have the capacity to backfill that,” the governor said after a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Polytechnic Campus of Arizona State University.
Overall, the report shows that the average monthly household benefit was about $358. And the total paid during that period to all Arizonan beneficiaries was more than $161.1 million.
The governor does have some funds over which she has control.
Earlier this month, for example, she gave out $13.5 million for eviction prevention programs and to respond to those who are homeless. But Hobbs said those are dollars that are in the state budget with restrictions on how they can be used.
She also has access to federal dollars the state received as part of COVID relief, such as the $5 million the governor allocated to expand a program that provides down payment assistance for first-time home buyers.
“The COVID money is very much exhausted,” Hobbs said.
Governors elsewhere, however, say they are looking at ways to mitigate the harm to their residents.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin earlier this week declared a state of emergency over the looming loss of SNAP benefits to residents of his state. He said it would allow him to “expend emergency funds for the health, welfare, and safety of Virginians.”
In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis asked lawmakers for $10 million to sustain food stamp assistance.
State officials in New Hampshire said they are working with food banks to set up 20 new mobile food pantries.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry declared a state of emergency, saying he is “making it a top priority to ensure that seniors, individuals with disabilities, and children who rely on food stamps do not go hungry in Louisiana.” But he provided no specifics on what that entails.
And in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he will deploy the National Guard to help support food banks.
Hobbs brushed aside the question of why she can’t intervene similarly, given what other governors are doing.
“I’m not sure what resources they’re coming up with,” she said. “We don’t have those resources.”
Who may have the resources — at least in the short-term — is the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency that administers the federal SNAP program.
A group of Democratic lawmakers in Washington is urging the agency to use its $5 billion contingency reserve.
“Choosing not to ensure SNAP benefits reach those in need this November would be a gross dereliction of your responsibilities to the American people,” they wrote.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, in an Oct. 24 letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, said Congress appropriated at least $6 billion in contingency reserve funds, money she said “can be used to fund SNAP benefits during the shutdown.”
And the Center for American Progress, which tends to look at economic and social issues from a liberal viewpoint, contends that USDA has a “lapse of funding plan” and is “legally obligated to release these funds.”
There was no response to that query from the agency. But there’s some politics in all that.
“We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats,” an agency spokesman told Capitol Media Services on Friday. “Continue to hold out for the Far Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments.”
WIC stands for Women, Infants, and Children, a separate program that provides food for pregnant women and new mothers. Its funding also is at risk.
Central to all this is who is at fault for the Senate’s failure to approve a “continuing resolution” to keep federal dollars flowing.
Democrat senators — whose votes are needed — want the plan to reinstate the subsidies now being offered to people who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Republicans have responded that they’re willing to talk — only after a vote on the continuing resolution.
Others also are playing the blame game.
In his announcement declaring an emergency in Virginia, Youngkin, a Republican, said he refuses to “let hungry Virginians be used as leverage by congressional Democrats.”
And Louisiana’s Republican governor, aside from blaming Democrats for the shutdown, also encouraged residents to seek job opportunities “and free themselves from these social programs that the Left uses as a weaponization tool to win political points.”
Hobbs, a Democrat, had her own take on where the blame lies.
“It is infuriating that the president is playing politics with this,” she said. And the governor said that Trump should “follow my lead” as someone who deals with divided government.
In her case, Hobbs said she vetoed a partisan budget that cut services. But rather than getting to a point where government was shut down, “we forced the legislative leaders back to the table and we got a good budget for Arizonans.”
“And the president should be meeting instead of playing political games,” Hobbs added.
But the governor bristled at a question of whether Senate Democrats are to blame, as they could solve the problem by simply agreeing to the continuing resolution, at least for some period of time.
“Look: I don’t think it’s helpful to point fingers,” she said, even as she repeated it’s the job of the president to “bring people to the table and make them negotiate.”
“But this chaos in Washington, regardless of who’s to blame, is harming Arizonans,” Hobbs said. She said it goes beyond food stamps to include delays at airports and Arizona companies affected by disasters that don’t get their Small Business Administration loans.
All of this is going to place new pressure on food banks.
Jerry Brown, spokesman for St. Mary’s Food Bank, said his organization is already stretched.
“We’ve seen 10% increases four years in a row,” he said. And there were 2.4 million visits to the organization’s locations last year, resulting in distribution of 129 million pounds of food.
“That’s before any of this other stuff,” Brown said. And just on Friday — before any cuts in food stamps — “the line today is out the door and snaking down Thomas Road.”
Still, Brown said no one will walk away empty handed.
“We never said ‘no’ to anybody, and we’re not going to,” he said of the organization’s 58 years. But what it also means, Brown said, is that a food box that used to have 13 or 14 items in it might now have just 11 or 12.
“Hopefully, this ends in a timely fashion,” he said, and especially before the normal crush around Thanksgiving.
One other option is for those who still have October benefits on their debit cards to stock up — particularly on shelf-stable foods that can last through November. That’s exactly what is being urged by the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
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