SCOTUS pauses judge's requirement Trump admin fully fund SNAP benefits during Congressional shut down

The Supreme Court on Friday night put a stay on Rhode Island Judge John McConnell's ruling that the executive branch must pay out food aid to millions of people after Congress put a halt to that funding. The SNAP benefits program costs, on average, about $8 billion per month. McConnell demanded that the government make the payments by Friday.

In an order from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Court granted the administrative stay so that the court of appeals could consider the case. "This administrative stay will terminate forty-eight hours after the First Circuit’s resolution of the pending motion, which the First Circuit is expected to issue with dispatch," it reads.

US Solicitor General John Sauer told the Court that the lapse in funding for the SNAP program is because Congress shut down the government. While it "is a crisis," he said, it is "a crisis occasioned by congressional failure and one that can only be solved through congressional action." 

Because Congress has not budgeted money for the 2026 fiscal year, which began October 1, and has refused to sign off on a budget, the SNAP funds have dried up. The Department of Agriculture stopped making payments on Nov. 1. The Rhode Island State Council of Churches, along with other non-profits, brought suit in Rhode Island to demand that the government pay November's benefits using an emergency fund.

That emergency fund only has about half of the necessary total to make the payments. McConnell told the government to make partial payments using that emergency fund or to go find the money elsewhere and make the full payments. SNAP beneficiaries are only some of those who are not getting paid due to Congressional inaction. 

The White House opted to make partial payments, but on Thursday, McConnell said they had to pay everything. Sauer filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, which denied the request for an immediate stay but said they "would act 'as quickly as possible' on the request for a stay pending appeal," per SCOTUS blog.