Judge orders administration to distribute SNAP contingency money amid shutdown

https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-rules-trumps-attempt-suspend-snap-funding-unlawful/story?id=127069497

46•jrflowers•3mo ago

Comments

hdlothia•3mo ago

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.

Acrobatic_Road•3mo ago

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.

CiscoCodex•3mo ago

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.

yesco•3mo ago

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.

redserk•3mo ago

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)

dragonwriter•3mo ago

> 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.

SilverElfin•3mo ago

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.

Stephen_0xFF•3mo ago

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

lazyasciiart•3mo ago

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.

mhb•3mo ago

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.

dragonwriter•3mo ago

What power are you talking about here?

mhb•3mo ago

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

SilverElfin•3mo ago

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

mothballed•3mo ago

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.

Spivak•3mo ago

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.

mhb•3mo ago

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.

susiecambria•3mo ago

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.

egberts1•3mo ago

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

redserk•3mo ago

> 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.

egberts1•3mo ago

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.

TrnsltLife•3mo ago

A disaster of human nature but not of Nature herself.

egberts1•3mo ago

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)

The Janitor on Mars

Bringing Polars to .NET

Adventures in Guix Packaging

Show HN: We had 20 Claude terminals open, so we built Orcha

Your Best Thinking Is Wasted on the Wrong Decisions

Warcraftcn/UI – UI component library inspired by classic Warcraft III aesthetics

Trump Vodka Becomes Available for Pre-Orders

Velocity of Money

Stop building automations. Start running your business

You can't QA your way to the frontier

Show HN: PalettePoint – AI color palette generator from text or images

Robust and Interactable World Models in Computer Vision [video]

Nestlé couldn't crack Japan's coffee market.Then they hired a child psychologist

Notes for February 2-7

Study confirms experience beats youthful enthusiasm

The Big Hunger by Walter J Miller, Jr. (1952)

The Genus Amanita

We have broken SHA-1 in practice

Ask HN: Was my first management job bad, or is this what management is like?

Ask HN: How to Reduce Time Spent Crimping?

KV Cache Transform Coding for Compact Storage in LLM Inference

A quantitative, multimodal wearable bioelectronic device for stress assessment

Why Big Tech Is Throwing Cash into India in Quest for AI Supremacy

How to shoot yourself in the foot – 2026 edition

Eight More Months of Agents

From Human Thought to Machine Coordination

The new X API pricing must be a joke

Show HN: RMA Dashboard fast SAST results for monorepos (SARIF and triage)

Show HN: Source code graphRAG for Java/Kotlin development based on jQAssistant

Python Only Has One Real Competitor

The Janitor on Mars

Bringing Polars to .NET

Adventures in Guix Packaging

Show HN: We had 20 Claude terminals open, so we built Orcha

Your Best Thinking Is Wasted on the Wrong Decisions

Warcraftcn/UI – UI component library inspired by classic Warcraft III aesthetics

Trump Vodka Becomes Available for Pre-Orders

Velocity of Money

Stop building automations. Start running your business

You can't QA your way to the frontier

Show HN: PalettePoint – AI color palette generator from text or images

Robust and Interactable World Models in Computer Vision [video]

Nestlé couldn't crack Japan's coffee market.Then they hired a child psychologist

Notes for February 2-7

Study confirms experience beats youthful enthusiasm

The Big Hunger by Walter J Miller, Jr. (1952)

The Genus Amanita

We have broken SHA-1 in practice

Ask HN: Was my first management job bad, or is this what management is like?

Ask HN: How to Reduce Time Spent Crimping?

KV Cache Transform Coding for Compact Storage in LLM Inference

A quantitative, multimodal wearable bioelectronic device for stress assessment

Why Big Tech Is Throwing Cash into India in Quest for AI Supremacy

How to shoot yourself in the foot – 2026 edition

Eight More Months of Agents

From Human Thought to Machine Coordination

The new X API pricing must be a joke

Show HN: RMA Dashboard fast SAST results for monorepos (SARIF and triage)

Show HN: Source code graphRAG for Java/Kotlin development based on jQAssistant

Python Only Has One Real Competitor

Judge orders administration to distribute SNAP contingency money amid shutdown

Comments