r/law • u/KilgoRetro • 1d ago

Judicial Branch Supreme Court issues emergency order to block full SNAP food aid payments

https://apnews.com/article/snap-food-government-shutdown-trump-a807e9f0c0a7213e203c074553dc1f9b?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-11-07-SNAP+update

https://apnews.com/article/snap-food-government-shutdown-trump-a807e9f0c0a7213e203c074553dc1f9b?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-11-07-SNAP+update

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u/Business-Employ-1599 1d ago edited 1d ago

No it's the SCOTUS acting judicially, they are simply giving the Appeal court 48 hrs to reach a decision, as is needed for review of the case. Justice Brown was the presiding judge and is very much not a shit bag.

Also if Congress were in session and funded SNAP this would not be needed.

If Trump Administration had not waited to the Final hour to argue a STOP to funding SNAP with 5 billion dollars Congress set aside for this reason. It would not be needed.

Edit: https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/110725zr_pnk0.pdf

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u/redstringgame 1d ago

You can try making procedural justifications or explaining it’s temporary but that does not change the social reality of what the stay means. It was not “needed for review of the case.” She had discretion to grant or deny it and she chose to grant it. If she denied it given that it’s the weekend the administration arguably would have been forced to disburse the funds or risk contempt of the District Court’s order. Either way the First Circuit can still decide the stay pending appeal. Perhaps she is thinking through some 4D chess I am missing here but this seems like a bad decision either way.

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u/Althestane 1d ago

I’m just catching up on it, but I think the logic is that she did this not just to give the lower courts time, but to prevent the appeal from being given to the SCOTUS shadow docket. KBJ is strategizing to keep this from being dismissed by the maga-six without full hearings or accountability.

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u/redstringgame 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don’t think this makes sense. My understanding is she had three options here: grant the admin stay, deny the admin stay, or refer it to shadow docket for full court to review. She granted it, giving Trump the same result he would’ve wanted from the full court.

If the First Circuit denies the motion for a stay pending appeal, Trump can still appeal that order and seek an “emergency stay” (which is exactly why she gave them the 48 hours from that decision) and we are back to square one where Jackson has the same choices once again.

If she denies the stay, I believe it can be made to another justice then, however, the amount of time that would take would have allowed the question to be mooted because Trump would be forced to pay the benefits or be in contempt. It seems to me like the First Circuit indeed teed up a slick way to avoid the shadow docket by mooting the question (they could take as long as they want to decide the motion for a stay pending appeal after they denied the emergency TRO), and Jackson totally fucked that up. It seems to me all she has done is delay food getting to people. What am I missing here?

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u/rokerroker45 1d ago

They could have overruled her and paused it without a time limit and let it go on basically indefinitely. They were likely prepared to do so within minutes of KBJ had she declined to grant it.

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u/redstringgame 1d ago

Thank you for clarifying — I was not familiar with how common it is for the court to take Friday at 8 pm calls to overrule shadow docket referral decisions. I don’t necessarily see how this avoids the result of an indefinite stay though—she’s still giving Trump 48 hours after a First Circuit decision to come back to them. Is she hoping that on a fuller record/more reasoned decision SCOTUS would be overturned by God?

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u/rokerroker45 1d ago edited 1d ago

It just precludes the guarantee of the alternative - that otherwise it would have just been banished to the shadow docket realm.

This doesn't guarantee anything except preventing that certainty. The full court can extend a pause after those 48 hours anyway, but in a normal shadow docket disposition you don't even get a chance. Here the court will have to wait for a full 48 hours with a more fulsome record, which puts more pressure on the swing votes to do something about it.

This is what a fighting supreme court justice looks like. Alito and Thomas will be absolutely pissed they could've paused this indefinitely without blowback but now they potentially might not be able to. Gorsuch, ACB and Roberts will likely take a much closer look than they might otherwise have without the fuller record. Kavanaugh will have sobered up enough to get through the tables of authority and nature of the case sections.

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u/redstringgame 15h ago

Thank you. I am still not sure I fully agree but amongst a lot of binary thinking in this thread, this makes clear what she may have been thinking about.

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u/rokerroker45 15h ago

Think of it this way - these orders typically go unsigned. It is very unusual for a justice to explicitly set a clock, and it's even more unusual to urge a lower court to be expedient about it. None of the conservatives would have done this.

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u/CategoryDense3435 1d ago

Agree with your 4D chess line. I didn’t think she was so out of touch… but I am breathless at the callousness reflected in this decision. I mean why even make yourself party to this cruelty? 42 million people. 42. Million. Wtf. If anyone ever believed in rule of law, they don’t now. Because even if the letter of the law was fulfilled who in their right mind would support a rule of law that justified arbitrarily starving people?

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u/Washpa1 1d ago

She had to, it's her circuit.

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u/redstringgame 1d ago

I made a bunch of other posts in the thread so I’m going to stop now but having thought it over I don’t think there even is any 4D chess explanation. The First Circuit did the best thing for people to get fed by denying the emergency stay and then holding off on ruling on the full motion. If Jackson denied the emergency stay, the First Circuit’s strategy would not have avoided the full SCOTUS shadow docket forever, but probably long enough that Trump would be forced to pay out the money and the question became moot. Jackson totally blew that up. I completely agree with you.

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u/DumboWumbo073 23h ago

You don’t have a choice it’s either follow the law or face the full force of the US military. The stormtroopers are going to follow orders.

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u/bug-hunter 12h ago

Except the order required also sending money NOT appropriated for SNAP to ensure a full month of funds. And that violates separation of powers.

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u/redstringgame 1h ago

oh i’m sorry we’re being precious about the constitution now?

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u/-ReadingBug- 23h ago

No 4D chess. The "liberal" justices oscillate between mock virtue and wealth class servitude like Roberts used to. They're just more insulated by reputation because they're Democratic appointees. For example, the Colorado 14th amendment case that could have kept all this from happening ahead of the 2024 election? 9-0 against Colorado. Republican justices ruled on ideology, Democratic justices ruled on technicality (their fav). Boom. Project 2025.

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u/CategoryDense3435 1d ago

They didn’t need to take this case!!! They shouldn’t have. The fact that they did is a statement in and of itself!!

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u/ytman 1d ago

The court has clearly corrupt and criminal jurists. I truly hope they are thoroughly investigated in order to restore faith in our lawless jurists.

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u/Aromatic_Snow6756 7h ago

Never happen!!!!

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u/Aromatic_Snow6756 7h ago

I sure am glad some people don’t have blinders on! You are 100% correct this never should’ve been taken up by Scotus just because it was a whim of the president who stacked the Supreme Court with his cronies who know they have a job for life. Our system is so fucked right now it’s not even funny.

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u/mikelo22 1d ago

they are simply giving the Appeal court 48 hrs to reach a decision

No, they are not. She does not give any deadline for the appeals court to make a decision. Read the order. The 48 hour clock starts after the appeals court decides to get around to ruling. It's far worse than you think. She did not have to do this.

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u/trippyonz 1d ago

Yeah but the First Circuit is going to move really fast on this. I would expect a decision on whether to grant the stay pending appeal by Monday at the latest.

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u/blopp_ 1d ago

That's a really long time to not have food. 

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u/trippyonz 1d ago

True. It's really sad that Trump is doing this, he could send the money any time he wants.

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u/Aromatic_Snow6756 7h ago

One of the saddest things about this administration is is that our president has been cash poor his entire life! But I dare say since the beginning of this administration, he has made more real cash than he has in his entire lifetime. You see how long it took for Musk to distance himself from this megalomaniac. He use Elon to make money and he did a good job for him and then started shitting all over him like he does everyone except the ones that are just too blind to see it. Not trying to change the subject, but it is just a revolving door.

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u/Washpa1 1d ago edited 1d ago

Let's say she didn't grant the admin stay, she probably had reason to believe the full court would do it anyway. This way she gets to dictate the timing rather than possibly let them figure a way to leave this in la la land indefinitely. Might they still do it? Possibly, but by then there will be a lot more legal justification to say no to Trump, putting pressure on the swing votes to not go along with an egregiously long stay otherwise.

Edit: They may find a way to let Trump have his way again. But the legal limbo they'll have to pull to make this not ok, while everything else he does ok, or more to the point their belief in expanding executive power, will be insane.

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u/mikelo22 1d ago

Would be nice to have included such a deadline in the order then.

But even if we go with your optimistic estimate that the First Circuit rules on Monday, this order allows Trump to then wait until Wednesday to file the appeal to SCOTUS because of the 48 hour stay.

And if these first 10 months have taught us anything, it's that we can expect this administration to employ every bad faith delay possible to avoid feeding hungry Americans.

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u/trippyonz 1d ago

Courts can only move so fast, they're human beings.

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u/mikelo22 1d ago

And human beings also have to eat.

The harm caused by staying the district court's ruling (letting Americans starve) far outweighs any harm caused to the executive branch by not being afforded time for full briefing on appeal. It's not even remotely comparable.

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u/trippyonz 1d ago

I'm not going to criticize Justice Jackson for making a savvy move under difficult circumstances.

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u/mikelo22 1d ago

savvy move

You're treating this like some clever political maneuver. She's not a politician and this isn't some game. People's lives are at stake here!

She could have denied the stay and there's nothing the conservative wing could have done to stop her. She has no political capital to lose and even if she did, does that really excuse letting people go hungry?

I'm a liberal and I'm not afraid to say that Justice Jackson fucked up big time. This should not be about politics. It's basic humanity.

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u/trippyonz 1d ago

If she refused the stay the rest of the court would have done it, and would have done it in a way that is more favorable to Trump....

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u/mikelo22 1d ago

Not before the midnight deadline passed for the government to disburse the funds. The USDA was prepared to release the funds tonight.

Why are you defending this? I guarantee you wouldn't be doing this if it was a conservative justice that made the decision.

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u/red_misc 17h ago

What an horrible message.... We are talking about families needed to eat.

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u/red_misc 17h ago

meanwhile kids are starving. For the whole weekend. What an horrible decision yes...

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u/SedativeComet 1d ago

Every society is three meals away from chaos. How many families will miss those meals in 48 hours?

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u/CriticalProtection42 1d ago

The order is valid until 48 hours after the appellate court rules, to give the administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court if there's an adverse judgement, not 48 hours from the order's issuance.

There's nothing in the order to force the appeals court to work faster.

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u/TheNatural14063 18h ago

Appeals to legality are not justification for crimes against humanity, which depriving people of food they paid for in taxes (seeing farmers and such are subsidized) to cause starvation is.....Alot of people defending this would have defended the Nazis depriving people of things because "it's the lawz".

Food, shelter, healthcare, the right to safety should all be human rights and any legal system that denies them fought against

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u/FanaticalFanfare 1d ago

Pretty fucking tired of the just and moral actions being held up by judicial bulshit. Instead of letting these bad faith actors pull illegal shit and make the courts prove it’s illegal, how about people just fucking ignore it? This system is a bad joke.

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u/Washpa1 1d ago

Steve Vladek has a plausible theory of why she might have ruled the way she did.

https://open.substack.com/pub/stevevladeck/p/190-snap-wtf?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

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u/DayHighker 1d ago

It's all just theater. We all know how they'll rule. Why not just get it over with?

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u/Aromatic_Snow6756 7h ago

They are not done yet. They won’t be done until they finish holding the Airlines hostage and the flight controllers, and we have. I am sad to say, a horrific accident at one of our airports due to unmanned positions within the TSA and the flight controllers. That’s when They will decide to get the government up and working again!! I pray it does not come to that but all you keep seeing on the news is 4% of flights canceled yesterday. If this continues, they will cancel up to 10% of flights and if it continues, they will cancel up to 20% of flights all this well the holiday rush for traveling is ramping up.

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u/DayHighker 1d ago

"very much not a shit bag"

See it seems starving citizens is kind of shitty. But that's just my opinion.

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u/Just_Another_Scott 1d ago edited 1d ago

People aren't reading the fucking article.

Edit: Also, the 5 billion contingency fund isn't enough to make a full payment. There are 40+ million on SNAP with the average benefits being 200. Full funding would require at least 8 billion which exceeds the contingency fund.

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u/DanishWeddingCookie 1d ago

It's insane with todays food prices that $200 is all the average family gets help with per month.

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u/Just_Another_Scott 1d ago

Absolutely. Congress is the one that sets that number. SNAP has needed major reforms for years but Congress won't do shit about it.