Trump administration withdraws request for Supreme Court to pause district court ruling on SNAP payments (updated on Nov. 13)

Update (Nov. 13 at 1:06 p.m.): With the government shutdown over, Sauer notified the Supreme Court on Thursday morning that the Trump administration was withdrawing its request to pause McConnell’s ruling. Sauer noted that the bill ending the shutdown “fully funds SNAP through the end of the fiscal year” – rendering the request to stay the district court’s order moot (that is, no longer a live controversy).

Update (Nov. 11 at 6:31 p.m.): On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court extended the administrative stay, keeping McConnell’s ruling on hold until 11:59 p.m. EST on Nov. 13. With the House of Representatives slated to vote on Wednesday on a deal to end the shutdown, the brief unsigned order presumably gives the government time to reopen, and for SNAP benefits to resume. Jackson indicated that she would not have extended the administrative stay, and that she would have turned down the government’s request.

The Trump administration and a group of nonprofits and cities sparred over whether the Supreme Court should block an order by a federal judge in Rhode Island that would require the government to fully fund the federal food-stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, for November despite the government shutdown. 

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on Monday afternoon that the ruling by U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., “inject[s] the federal courts into the political branches’ closing efforts to end this shutdown.” The Trump administration “unequivocally agrees that any lapse in SNAP funding is tragic.” But, as he had stressed on Friday night when he first asked the justices to intervene, Sauer said that “[t]he only way to end this crisis—which the Executive is adamant to end—is for Congress to reopen the government.” 

The challengers countered on Tuesday morning that even if negotiations to end the shutdown are underway, that “is a reason to deny a stay” of McConnell’s ruling, “not to grant it.” And although they agreed with the government “that the present situation has been a ‘recipe for chaos,’” they insisted that “the chaos was sown by” the Department of Agriculture’s “delays and intransigence, not by the district court’s efforts to mitigate that chaos and the harm it has inflicted on families who need food.”  

The two briefs, which were filed less than a day apart, were the latest in a whirlwind of activity surrounding the challenge. 

In an order on Nov. 1, McConnell directed the government either to fully fund SNAP benefits for November by Nov. 3 or to partially fund the benefits, using emergency funds, by Nov. 5. But McConnell was dissatisfied with the delays that followed the Trump administration’s efforts to implement the latter option. In an order on Nov. 6, McConnell instructed the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP benefits for November by Friday, Nov. 7. 

The Trump administration went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, asking that court to pause McConnell’s ruling – and to issue a temporary block, known as an administrative stay, while it considered the government’s request. That court denied the government’s bid for an administrative stay on Friday but indicated that it would act “as quickly as possible” on the request for a stay pending appeal. 

Sauer then came to the Supreme Court on Friday night, asking the justices to intervene. He called McConnell’s order requiring the government to fully fund the SNAP program for November “unprecedented,” adding that it “makes a mockery of the separation of powers.” More broadly, he wrote, if left in place, it would “sow further shutdown chaos” as it would lead to other challenges to the government’s failure to fund benefit programs. With McConnell’s Friday night deadline looming, he asked the court to quickly issue an administrative stay – by 9:30 p.m. EST.

Shortly before 9:30 p.m., Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who at least initially fields emergency requests from the 1st Circuit, issued that administrative stay, which put the government’s funding obligation on hold until 48 hours after the 1st Circuit’s ruling on the government’s request for a stay. 

On Sunday night, the 1st Circuit rejected the Trump administration’s plea for a stay, leaving McConnell’s order in place for now. 

That prompted Jackson to issue a new order on Monday morning, instructing the Trump administration to quickly inform the Supreme Court whether it planned to continue to seek a stay and, if so, to file any supplemental briefing by Monday afternoon. 

Sauer began his brief on Monday afternoon by noting that on Sunday night “the Senate began the process for ending the shutdown and funding the government—including full funding for SNAP through the end of the fiscal year—though the outcome of that process remains, to be sure, uncertain.” If the government were to reopen, Sauer said, the government’s application for a stay of McConnell’s ruling would be moot – that is, no longer a live controversy. But McConnell’s order, Sauer told the justices, “throw[s] a massively inappropriate new variable into negotiations” and is “also sowing upheaval in the SNAP program itself.” 

“The irreparable harms of allowing district courts to inject themselves into the shutdown and decide how to triage limited funds are grave enough to warrant a stay,” Sauer wrote. Moreover, he added, McConnell’s ruling is “indefensible on the merits.” Indeed, he suggested, “the court of appeals barely defended the district court’s legal reasoning.” 

Therefore, Sauer concluded, the Supreme Court should “immediately” extend the administrative stay that Jackson issued on Friday night “to let the political process that is rapidly playing out reach its conclusion.” And, if the shutdown does not end, he said, the court should put McConnell’s order on hold. 

In the same Monday morning order, Jackson directed the challengers to respond by 8 a.m. EST on Tuesday. In that response, they emphasized that, given the government’s failure to partially fund the SNAP program, McConnell had issued two orders on Nov. 6. Both of those orders, the challengers argued, “independently imposed the same remedy” – requiring the federal government to “make full November SNAP payments, using Child Nutrition funds in combination with the SNAP contingency funds, by November 7.” The first order, they said, granted the challengers’ motion to enforce McConnell’s Nov. 1 ruling and required the government to fully fund SNAP benefits for November by the next day. The second order, they wrote, set aside the government’s decision to partially fund the benefits as arbitrary and capricious – that is, it was unreasonable or made without considering the underlying facts – and also ordered the government to fully fund the SNAP benefits. 

Until Monday, the challengers said, the Trump administration “barely even acknowledged” the first order, “let alone contested it.” It therefore can’t now dispute McConnell’s decision to require it to fully fund SNAP for November, the challengers asserted. 

The challengers also pushed back against the government’s claim that it could not use funds from the Child Nutrition account to fully fund the November SNAP payments because it “would create a ‘significant shortfall’ in the account and thus ‘shift the problem’ to children who rely on school lunches.” The challengers agreed that it was “critically important” to provide “support for child nutrition.” But, they stressed, even if the government used the Child Nutrition account to make up the SNAP shortfall, it would still have nearly $20 billion in the account – “enough to fully fund Child Nutrition through May and beyond, even if the current lapse in appropriations lasted that long.” 

The Supreme Court, the challengers concluded, “should deny the government’s application and not allow any further delay in getting vital food assistance to people who need it now.” 

On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court extended the administrative stay, keeping McConnell’s ruling on hold until 11:59 p.m. EST on Nov. 13. With the House of Representatives slated to vote on Wednesday on a deal to end the shutdown, the brief unsigned order presumably gives the government time to reopen, and for SNAP benefits to resume. 

Jackson indicated that she would not have extended the administrative stay, and that she would have turned down the government’s request.

On the morning of Thursday, Nov. 13, with the government shutdown over, Sauer notified the Supreme Court that the Trump administration was withdrawing its request to pause McConnell’s ruling. Sauer noted that the bill ending the shutdown “fully funds SNAP through the end of the fiscal year” – rendering the request to stay the district court’s order moot (that is, no longer a live controversy).