Bananas and cereal at a grocery store in Fairfax, Virginia, March 3, 2011. (USDA photo by Lance Cheung.)
A coalition of Democratic state officials sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, asking a federal judge to force the release of food aid funds for 42 million people that the U.S. Department of Agriculture says cannot be disbursed during the ongoing government shutdown.
Attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia and three governors were launched suit days before benefits are expected to cut off for low-income Americans who enrolled in the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on November 1.
Despite having $6 billion in the USDA reserve fund he said last week would not consider November SNAP benefits without congressionally approved funding in fiscal year 2026.
USDA’s denial of benefits in November flies in the face of precedent surrounding other recent shutdowns and even the department’s Sept. 30 contingency plan, which stipulated that the contingency fund would be used to continue benefits after the shutdown.
The administration also shuffled other money to provide funding for some programs, but not SNAP.
Democratic officials said these factors made the decision arbitrary and capricious, a violation of federal administrative law, and asked a federal court in Massachusetts to order the USDA’s move illegal and block the administration from implementing it.
“The refusal to use available funds, including the SNAP Contingency Reserve, to fund benefits under the mandatory SNAP entitlement program constitutes an abuse of discretion by Defendants,” they wrote.
SNAP benefits typically cost the federal government about $9 billion a month, which means the emergency fund could cover about two-thirds of November’s benefits.
The department could take a full month to utilize another USDA nutrition assistance program that has raised about $23 billion, state officials say. Part of this fund was used to cover shortfalls in the Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children earlier this month.
The attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Minnesota, (*28*), Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin filed the lawsuit along with Democratic governors. Laura Kelly of Kansas, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
Closure policy
In an emailed statement, a USDA spokesman did not address the lawsuit filed by state officials and instead blamed the shutdown on Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
“We are approaching a turning point for Democrats in the Senate,” the spokesman wrote. “Continue to stand with the far left wing of the party or reopen the government so that mothers, children and the most vulnerable can receive their WIC and SNAP allocations on time.”
SNAP, which is administered by federal government funds and states, is one of the high-profile programs affected by the government shutdown that began Oct. 1 when Congress failed to appropriate funds for the fiscal year that began on that date.
Republicans in Congress tried to pass a stopgap measure to reopen the government, but Democrats successfully blocked the bill by demanding that Congress address the phasing out of health care premiums under the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
IN letter on Tuesday afternoon, 19 Republican attorneys general urged Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to support a Republican stopgap solution to prevent the termination of SNAP benefits.
The letter, led by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, called SNAP “one of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent hunger in America.”
“You have the power to prevent an entirely avoidable crisis,” the letter said. “A immaculate resolution is not a political concession; it is a responsible move.[…]Refusing to make this decision now is not a sign of leadership; it is putting pressure at the expense of the most vulnerable.
In addition to Yost, the letter was signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.
Benefits are already delayed in some states
Due to the processing time required to add money to SNAP recipients’ electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards, November benefits may already be delayed in some states.
The lawsuit says it takes about a week for the California EBT Provider, a private company that contracts to load monthly benefits onto individual EBT cards, to process those transfers.
“Accordingly, to ensure that recipients received their November 2025 benefits on time, California would be required to submit release files to its provider by October 23, 2025.” – stated in the lawsuit. “Any day after October 23 that California fails to send emissions files to its providers will result in November benefits being delayed by another day.”
Additionally, because most states utilize one of two EBT providers, there is a mighty likelihood that providers will be overwhelmed with workload “from all of their client states at essentially the same time” once benefits are unlocked, state officials say.
So even if USDA makes funding available immediately, there will be a delay before it appears on EBT cards, they say.
