Dozens of Democratic attorneys general and governors are planning to sue President Donald Trump’s administration Tuesday over its decision to not tap emergency funds amid the government shutdown to keep food aid flowing to 42 million Americans next month, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of a public announcement.
Trump officials concluded in a Friday memo that they cannot legally tap a $5 billion contingency fund for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program amid the shutdown to pay benefits in November. Some in the administration believe, with $9 billion needed to fund SNAP payments for the month, there is no time to distribute smaller payments to individual states.
Administration officials anticipated their legal determination would be challenged in court, POLITICO reported last week, and there are no serious efforts underway at USDA to find other sources of funding, according to two other people granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. But some GOP lawmakers whose constituents would be clobbered by a first-ever lapse of federal food benefits, are pushing for some kind of patch to prevent that from happening.
Senate Republicans are divided over whether to vote on a standalone bill to keep SNAP beneficiaries — many of whom live in rural and Hispanic-majority Republican districts — from losing assistance. Many argue Democrats will be at fault if the Friday deadline barrels past with no fix as they continue to push Democratic senators to vote for the stopgap spending bill the House passed last month.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune argued Monday the best way to fund SNAP was for Democrats to vote to reopen the government, though he said GOP senators would discuss the issue during their Tuesday policy lunch.
Republicans, for now, don’t believe Thune will put a SNAP funding carve-out to a vote this week, according to two senators and three aides granted anonymity to discuss GOP party strategy.
But a growing number of Senate Republicans — including some within Thune’s own leadership circle — are publicly saying Congress needs to fund SNAP whether or not Democrats relent on overall government funding, lest millions without food aid before Thanksgiving.
“Yeah, I would vote for that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said in a brief interview Monday about supporting a standalone SNAP bill.
Capito, who chairs the Senate GOP policy committee and whose constituents are heavily reliant on SNAP, said she didn’t want the program to lapse during the shutdown.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins and a handful of other Republican senators have signed on to a bill from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to fund the program, and they are pushing for a vote this week.
Asked Monday if she wants the administration to allow SNAP to be administered in November, Collins replied, “I certainly do.”
Collins said she wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins last week and “strongly recommended that she use the $5 billion in contingency fees.” She said she hadn’t heard back from the secretary.
Republican and Democratic aides believe a SNAP carve-out would pass in the Senate, but bringing it up for a vote this week would require all 100 senators to agree to fast-track it to the floor.
Privately, Republicans fear allowing a standalone vote on food aid would relieve key pressure on Democrats and potentially prolong the shutdown. Passing it would also mean bringing the House back into session to send it to Trump’s desk, something Speaker Mike Johnson has been trying to avoid.
“If we could figure out a way to find something Democrats will vote for, we’d love to do that, but right now, we could fully fund the SNAP program by reopening the government,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said. “We could do that in 30 minutes from now.”
Asked if he would support a standalone SNAP bill, Mullin replied, “I would support opening the government back up.”
Calen Razor and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
