The Trump administration’s attempt to slash food assistance for nearly 700,000 unemployed people got smacked down in federal court on Sunday. The plan was “arbitrary and capricious,” according to U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell—“arbitrary and capricious” being a phrase with massive significance in administrative law, translating more or less to “oh no you can’t.”
The Trump plan ”radically and abruptly alters decades of regulatory practice, leaving States scrambling and exponentially increasing food insecurity for tens of thousands of Americans,” Howell wrote, on top of which the U.S. Department of Agriculture “has been icily silent about how many [adults] would have been denied SNAP benefits had the changes sought . . . been in effect while the pandemic rapidly spread across the country.”
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A coalition of 19 states along with the District of Columbia, New York City, and private groups had sued to stop the rule from taking effect—Howell granted them summary judgment in the matter. The rule would have cut down on the ability of states to issue waivers to enable so-called able-bodied adults without dependents to get Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for more than three months in any three-year period unless they were employed or in an education or training program full-time. The Trump administration wants to end those waivers except where the unemployment rate is above 6%.
The decision was “a win for common sense and basic human decency,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. The rule, she said, “would have not only made it harder for thousands to feed their families and risk them going hungry, but would have exacerbated the public health crisis we face and the economic recession we are still in the midst of under President Trump.”
Howell ruled against the first of three planned Trump administration efforts to kick what would ultimately be millions of people off of SNAP. During a pandemic that has sent unemployment and poverty soaring. Bad enough that Trump and Senate Republicans refuse to pass new coronavirus economic relief—instead we have states in court trying to keep the fragile safety net that exists from being slashed further. And while this is a win at the district court level, the Trump-packed appeals courts and Supreme Court can’t be counted on to do the right thing if the administration appeals. Then again, it’s up to us to make sure they don't have time to carry through the full appeals process.