Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson just threw a curveball at a looming deadline for full SNAP payments.
According to The Hill, in a last-minute ruling, Jackson granted a temporary stay on a lower court order that demanded the Trump administration fully fund November Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by a tight deadline.
This decision offers the administration a brief breather as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit mulls over whether to block the order during the appeal process.
The backdrop to this legal tug-of-war is a government shutdown now dragging into its sixth week, with SNAP—a lifeline for about 42 million Americans—becoming a glaring casualty.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that benefits would be slashed starting this month, marking an unprecedented total cutoff for the program.
In response, cities and private organizations sued the administration, arguing that cutting off grocery assistance amid a shutdown is a policy disaster waiting to happen.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell initially ruled that the administration must tap into a $5 billion SNAP contingency fund, dismissing claims that it’s reserved solely for natural disasters like hurricanes.
But here’s the rub—that fund isn’t enough to cover the full benefits for the month, leaving a gaping hole in the budget.
Judge McConnell then doubled down, ordering the administration to shift roughly $4 billion from child nutrition programs to plug the SNAP gap, a move that sparked immediate backlash.
Facing a ticking clock, the Trump administration pushed back hard, filing an urgent appeal just before the deadline to comply with McConnell’s ruling. A three-judge panel at the First Circuit declined to step in immediately, leaving the administration to escalate the matter to the Supreme Court for emergency relief.
By the time the case landed on Jackson’s desk—she handles urgent appeals from the First Circuit by default—the USDA had already signaled to regional directors that it was scrambling to process payments.
Justice Jackson’s temporary stay doesn’t touch the core legal arguments but halts some payments for now, a move that conservatives might see as a small win against overreaching judicial mandates. “Given the First Circuit’s representations, an administrative stay is required to facilitate the First Circuit’s expeditious resolution of the pending stay motion,” Jackson noted.
Let’s unpack that—while progressives might cry foul over delayed aid, this pause avoids a rushed reshuffling of funds that could create more chaos than it solves, especially when recalculating partial payments could take weeks, as both states and the administration have admitted.
On the other side, Attorney General Pam Bondi took to social media with a fiery pledge: “Our attorneys will not stop fighting, day and night, to defend and advance President Trump’s agenda.” That’s a rallying cry for those who see this as a stand against judicial overreach, though critics might argue it’s just dodging responsibility for a shutdown mess.
