Attorney General Andrea Campbell and 22 of her counterparts filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), alleging the agency is using the ongoing federal government shutdown to unlawfully suspend the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that delivers food aid to 40 million Americans.
The lawsuit, filed against the USDA and Secretary Brooke Rollins in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, aims to maintain the flow of SNAP benefits that are at risk on November 1. Rollins said in a TV interview Tuesday that Senate Democrats have repeatedly rejected stopgap spending measures that could enable the government to reopen and prevent any disruption in SNAP benefit delivery.
“We’re asking the court to immediately turn these benefits back on to prevent any harm that will happen not only to our residents, but to our economy because SNAP recipients won’t be the only ones who suffer,” Campbell said during a rally organized by the Make Hunger History Coalition. “Our families and our state won’t be able to close the gap, a gap of nearly $240 million every single month,” Campbell continued. “So it is past time that this administration do what’s right, act to help and not to harm, our residents that rely on government.”
The commonwealth is listed as the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. The coalition also plans to file a temporary restraining order on Tuesday to “immediately turn benefits back on,” Campbell’s office said.
Rollins blasted the lawsuit in an interview on CNN. “I find it extremely rich that the elected Democrats of California, and New York, and Washington, and Oregon and by the way, all governors that I work with in USDA on a lot of these different programs, you know the SNAP waivers and getting healthier food into SNAP, et cetera — but I find it very rich that they are suing the Trump administration because their friends on the Hill won’t vote yes to keep the government open,” she said.
The secretary added, “I believe that they have been very clear up on the Hill, the Democrats have, that they want to use this and they want to use those who are the poorest among us as leverage points to expand their policy agenda. And there’s no doubt about that.”
Advocates crowded the State House steps and sidewalk along Beacon Street Tuesday afternoon amid ongoing finger-pointing surrounding the fate of SNAP benefits and fears that young children, families, and persons with disabilities could soon go hungry.
They held signs with messages including, “Hunger is a choice we don’t have to make,” “Every Child Deserves Dinner,” “You Can’t Eat Bargaining Chips — Feed People Not Bureaucracy,” “SNAP to it! Feed the hungry!” and “Hey DC. Snap Out of It!!!” Some advocates booed and yelled “shame” as speakers decried President Donald Trump’s decision not to use contingency funds to cover SNAP benefits.
Campbell’s office contends the USDA “appears to have as much as $6 billion in SNAP contingency reserve funds” that it could dip into for emergencies like the shutdown. But Rollins said SNAP benefits in November alone will cost $9.2 billion.
“We don’t have the legal authority as of today to distribute anything less than that through the formulas, et cetera,” Rollins said. “We’re obviously looking at all of this as we move forward, but as of today, that $9.2 billion, we don’t even have close to that in contingency funding. We’ve got to get this government open.”
The shutdown impasse comes as Senate Democrats have repeatedly rejected GOP-backed stopgap spending measures while seeking to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of the year under a pandemic-era law. The expiration of subsidies could drive up health insurance premiums.
“But SNAP, the food stamp program, 42 million Americans, 22 million families are being held hostage by Katherine Clark,” Rollins said. “One of the leaders of the Democrat Party, her own words that they can use these poor families and these benefits for the leverage.”
In a tweet Monday, the House minority whip from Massachusetts said, “The Trump administration has money to fund SNAP, they just don’t want to.”
On the Senate floor Monday, Majority Leader John Thune lamented that Democrats “once passionately opposed shutdowns, or so they said, in large part because of the impact they would have on American citizens and American workers.”
“More than 40 million Americans could lose access to food stamps if the shutdown continues — 40 million,” Thune said. “And yet none of it seems to matter to Senate Democrats, the party that once decried the impact of shutdowns on Americans in need and now apparently content to see 40 million Americans go without food.”
https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/10/28/lawsuit-aims-to-block-snap-suspension/
