Trump to pursue food stamp blockade in court as shutdown endgame nears on Capitol Hill

The Trump administration said Monday that Democrat-appointed judges were in danger of undermining a carefully crafted deal to end the government shutdown by ordering the government to make full food stamp payments this month.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to maintain its blockade on spending the money in order to give Congress the space it needs to finish the final spending deal and get the government fully open again.

“Congress appears to be on the brink of breaking the deadlock, though that outcome is unsure. The district court’s unlawful orders risk upsetting that compromise,” Mr. Sauer said in a filing with the justices.

The high court gave President Trump a reprieve late Friday, saying he didn’t have to pay full food stamp benefits for November until the issue developed a little more in lower courts.

The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled late Sunday, which means the high court’s reprieve expires late Tuesday, barring any further action by the justices.

At issue are benefits for 42 million Americans who take part in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.

The government paid their October benefits but the Trump administration late last month announced that it considered SNAP shut down after the lapse in funding, meaning there is no program to spend the money this month.

A coalition of local governments and advocacy groups sued and won a ruling by U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr., an Obama appointee who first ordered partial payments using a contingency fund and then ordered the government to boost that to full payments by grabbing money from the Child Nutrition Program, which pays for school lunches.

Mr. Sauer said the justices should bristle at that sort of micromanaging of government finances, particularly when Congress and the president are engaged in touchy negotiations to reopen the federal behemoth.

“Literally at the eleventh hour, those orders inject the federal courts into the political branches’ closing efforts to end this shutdown,” he said. “The only way to end this crisis — which the executive is adamant to end — is for Congress to reopen the government.”

But the First Circuit, in a unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel, portrayed the food stamp halt as entirely within the administration’s own control.

Judge Julie Rikelman, a Biden appointee, said the consequences of halting payments were too large to let the government delay them while the case plays out.

“Without SNAP, tens of millions would go hungry — the first among a cascade of other health and financial harms that would befall those forced to go without enough food, particularly in the months leading up to winter,” she wrote.

She was joined by two other Democratic appointees in her ruling.

The shutdown began Oct. 1 when Democrats balked at a GOP bill to keep the government open, insisting it extend pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies that expire at the end of this year.

The result has been a record-breaking shutdown that saw Mr. Trump target key Democratic priorities for pain.

Senators struck a bargain Sunday to reopen the government while giving Democrats a chance to offer their Obamacare subsidy plan as legislation next month. The deal would also cancel Mr. Trump’s firings of workers furloughed during the shutdown — a move that had been put on hold by the courts anyway.

The Senate advanced the deal on a test vote Sunday, though it must give final approval and then send the measure to the House for another vote. Mr. Trump has indicated he will sign the measure.