Justice Department withdraws SNAP appeal from Supreme Court as funding resumes

Lawyers for the Trump administration on Thursday withdrew an emergency Supreme Court appeal centered on whether it must fully fund the nation’s largest anti-hunger program during the government shutdown — ending a roughly three-week court fight over a benefits program that impacted millions of Americans. 

The Justice Department said in withdrawing its emergency request that it considers the issue moot after Congress passed a bill to reopen the government, ending a 43-day government shutdown that is now the longest in U.S. history.

Trump signed off on the bill shortly after the House lawmakers voted 222-209 to approve it.

“That law, among other things, fully funds SNAP through the end of the fiscal year,” DOJ lawyers said. “Because the underlying dispute here is now moot, the government withdraws its November 7 stay application in this Court.”

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The bill Trump signed Wednesday night reverses widespread federal layoffs and will allow furloughed employees to receive paychecks and backpay for the first time in roughly six weeks.

 It will also relieve travel for millions of U.S. travelers whose flights were canceled or severely delayed as a result of the reduced workforce. 

Crucially, it also restores full funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, which lapsed on Nov. 1 for the first time in the program’s 60-year history.

Roughly 42 million Americans receive SNAP benefits, prompting more than two dozen states to sue the U.S. Department of Agriculture late last month to keep the program fully funded.

Lower courts had ordered USDA to tap various contingency funds to fully fund SNAP benefits while the shutdown dragged on, prompting the Trump administration to appeal the matter to the Supreme Court for emergency intervention.

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U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer had urged justices to stay the lower court orders, citing progress Congress had made in recent days to forge consensus on a bill to reopen the government.

Justices this week agreed to stay the lower court order through Tuesday at 11:59 p.m., and later, extended it for two additional days at the administration’s request.

The end of the shutdown keeps the government funded through January, even if it does not resolve the concerns over Obamacare subsidies that were a sticking point for most Democrat holdouts. 

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The news is likely to be welcome relief for the tens of millions of low-income Americans that rely on SNAP benefits to purchase groceries and keep their families fed. 

The Trump administration on Saturday threatened to slap economic penalties or fees on states that did not immediately undo efforts to distribute full SNAP benefits for the month of November, in compliance with a lower court order one day earlier. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture previously agreed to pay just 65% of SNAP benefits for the month using the agency’s contingency fund.)

The result was a patchwork system of benefits that varied from state to state, and as a result of various court orders — injecting fresh uncertainty and confusion over the benefits.

To contextualize the number of people that receive SNAP in his state, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin told reporters that there “are more children in New Jersey on SNAP than consists of the entire population of our state’s largest city.”