The Trump administration has moved quickly to challenge a district court order demanding immediate full funding of SNAP during the government shutdown, filing an emergency petition to the Supreme Court after an appeals court declined to pause the lower court’s ruling. This article walks through the district court order, the 1st Circuit response, the USDA memo, the Justice Department’s emergency filing, and reactions from administration spokespeople and allies.
A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the USDA to resume full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments for November, citing the need to ensure benefits continue despite the shutdown. The administration appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit but the appeals court refused to temporarily block the lower court’s order. That denial left the administration facing the prospect of moving billions to satisfy the judge’s ruling on a tight deadline.
:On Thursday, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to resume USDA financial support of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Again.
Following the district court decision, the USDA issued a memo to state SNAP administrators indicating it would “complete the processes necessary” to make funds available later that day. The department signaled it would work to provide full funding for November payments, even as legal questions swirled about whether the judiciary could compel the executive to allocate finite resources. That memo underlined the practical pressure the administration faced to meet immediate needs for millions of beneficiaries.
On Friday the 1st Circuit delivered unwelcome news for the administration by denying a request to stay the district court’s order while the appeals process continued. The appellate court’s refusal left the government with little time to act and prompted the Justice Department to escalate the issue to the Supreme Court. In response, the administration filed an emergency application asking the justices to act before the 9:30 p.m. deadline that night.
SEE: Federal Judge Orders USDA to Fully Fund SNAP Program
A White House spokesperson framed the situation as an imminent crisis, warning of “imminent, irreparable harms” if the orders were enforced and pointing out the massive transfers that the orders would require on extremely short notice. The filing emphasized the tension between judicial mandates and the executive branch’s duty to allocate limited resources across competing priorities. The administration argued that the federal courts should not be converting a temporary shutdown into a judicial-directed redistribution of federal funds.
The emergency petition to the Supreme Court relied on the Solicitor General’s request for immediate administrative relief, seeking a stay to prevent the transfer of an estimated $4 billion by the night deadline. Administration officials described the district court’s actions as overreach that risks undermining Congress’s power of the purse. That line of argument appealed to conservative concerns about separation of powers and judicial restraint.
[The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ] on Friday denied a Trump administration request to temporarily block a lower court ruling requiring the government to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program amid the government shutdown.
Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly criticized the Rhode Island decision, calling it “judicial activism at its worst.” She argued the single district court’s move threatened to disrupt political negotiations that could produce legislative solutions, and she stressed that courts should not be determining how to spend scarce federal funds during a shutdown. Bondi’s remarks echoed the administration’s position that elected lawmakers, not judges, must decide budget priorities.
Bondi also posted a series of comments detailing the rationale for the Supreme Court filing and spotlighting the constitutional stakes. In her posts she said the court below “took the current shutdown as effective license to declare a federal bankruptcy and appoint itself the trustee, charged with picking winners and losers among those seeking some part of the limited pool of remaining federal funds.” That quote is also reproduced in the emergency brief the DOJ submitted.
A single district court in Rhode Island should not be able to seize center stage in the shutdown, seek to upend political negotiations that could produce swift political solutions for SNAP and other programs, and dictate its own preferences for how scarce federal funds should be spent.
With hours to go before the TRO compliance clock runs, and the First Circuit waiting to deny immediate relief until minutes ago, we have filed an emergency stay application in the Supreme Court requesting immediate relief.
The administration’s brief stresses that Congress holds the core power of the purse and the Executive must allocate whatever limited funds remain across competing priorities. The brief asserts that the lower court effectively tried to resolve a funding dispute by directing transfers that would override legislative prerogatives. Those constitutional arguments form the backbone of the emergency appeal to the high court.
“The core power of Congress is that of the purse, while the Executive is tasked with allocating limited resources across competing priorities,” the brief reads. “But here, the court below took the current shutdown as effective license to declare a federal bankruptcy and appoint itself the trustee, charged with picking winners and losers among those seeking some part of the limited pool of remaining federal funds.”
The situation unfolded rapidly, with legal filings, administrative memos, and public statements all converging in a single day. The administration pushed for swift Supreme Court intervention to prevent court-ordered transfers that it says would short-circuit the legislative process and upset budget priorities set by elected officials.
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