Wisconsin became the 36th state to limit cellphones and other electronic devices in school Friday when its Democratic governor signed a bill requiring districts to prohibit phone use during class time.
The measure passed with bipartisan support, though some Democrats in the Legislature said controlling gun violence should be a higher priority than banning cellphones.
In signing the bill, Gov. Tony Evers said he believes that decisions like this should be made at the local level, but “my promise to the people of Wisconsin is to always do what’s best for our kids, and that obligation weighs heavily on me in considering this bill.”
Evers said he was “deeply concerned” about the impacts of cellphone and social media use on young people. He said cellphones could be “a major distraction from learning, a source of bullying, and a barrier to our kids’ important work of just being a kid.”
This school year alone, new restrictions on phone use in schools went into effect in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The push to limit cellphone use has been rapid. Florida was the first state to pass such a law, in 2023.
Both Democrats and Republicans have taken up the cause, reflecting a growing consensus that phones are bad for kids’ mental health and take their focus away from learning, even as some researchers say the issue is less clear-cut.
Most school districts in Wisconsin had already restricted cellphone use in the classroom, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report. The bill passed by the Legislature on Oct. 14 would require school districts to enact policies prohibiting the use of cellphones during instructional time.
Of the 36 states that restrict cellphones in school, phones are banned throughout the school day in 18 states and the District of Columbia, although Georgia and Florida impose “bell-to-bell” bans only from kindergarten through eighth grade. Another seven states ban them during class time, but not between classes or during lunch. Still others, particularly those with traditions of local school control, mandate only a cellphone policy, believing districts will take the hint and sharply restrict phone access.
Under the Wisconsin bill, all public schools are required to adopt a policy prohibiting the use of cellphones during instructional time by July 1. There would be exceptions including for use during an emergency or perceived threat; to manage a student’s health care; if use of the phone is allowed under the student’s individualized education program; or if written by a teacher for educational purposes.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Wisconsin becomes 36th state to limit cellphones in schools is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to pay for SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using emergency reserve funds during the government shutdown.
The judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island gave the administration leeway on whether to fund the program partially or in full for November. That also brings uncertainty about how things will unfold and will delay payments for many beneficiaries whose cards would normally be recharged early in the month.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting Nov. 1 because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net — and it costs about $8 billion per month nationally.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture committee that oversees the food aid program, said Friday’s rulings from judges nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama confirm what Democrats have been saying: “The administration is choosing not to feed Americans in need, despite knowing that it is legally required to do so.”
Democratic state attorneys general or governors from 25 states, as well as the District of Columbia, challenged the plan to pause the program, contending that the administration has a legal obligation to keep it running in their jurisdictions.
The administration said it wasn’t allowed to use a contingency fund of about $5 billion for the program, which reversed a USDA plan from before the shutdown that said money would be tapped to keep SNAP running. The Democratic officials argued that not only could that money be used, but that it must be. They also said a separate fund with around $23 billion is available for the cause.
In Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell ruled from the bench in a case filed by cities and nonprofits that the program must be funded using at least the contingency funds, and he asked for an update on progress by Monday.
Along with ordering the federal government to use emergency reserves to backfill SNAP benefits, McConnell ruled that all previous work requirement waivers must continue to be honored. The USDA during the shutdown has terminated existing waivers that exempted work requirements for older adults, veterans and others.
There were similar elements in the Boston case, where U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled in a written opinion that the USDA has to pay for SNAP, calling the suspension “unlawful.” She ordered the federal government to advise the court by Monday as to whether they will use the emergency reserve funds to provide reduced SNAP benefits for November or fully fund the program “using both contingency funds and additional available funds.
“Defendants’ suspension of SNAP payments was based on the erroneous conclusion that the Contingency Funds could not be used to ensure continuation of SNAP payments,” she wrote. “This court has now clarified that Defendants are required to use those Contingency Funds as necessary for the SNAP program.”
No matter how the rulings came down, the benefits for millions of people will be delayed in November because the process of loading cards can take a week or more in many states.
The administration did not immediately say whether it would appeal the rulings.
States, food banks and SNAP recipients have been bracing for an abrupt shift in how low-income people can get groceries. Advocates and beneficiaries say halting the food aid would force people to choose between buying groceries and paying other bills.
The majority of states have announced more or expedited funding for food banks or novel ways to load at least some benefits onto the SNAP debit cards.
Across the U.S., advocates who had been sounding the alarm for weeks about the pending SNAP benefits cut off let out a small sigh of relief on Friday as the rulings came down, while acknowledging the win is temporary and possibly not complete.
“Thousands of nonprofit food banks, pantries and other organizations across the country can avoid the impossible burden that would have resulted if SNAP benefits had been halted,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, one of the plaintiffs in the Rhode Island case.
Cynthia Kirkhart, CEO of Facing Hunger Food Bank in Huntington, West Virginia, said her organization and the pantries it serves in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia will keep their extra hours this weekend, knowing that the people whose benefits usually arrive at the start of the month won’t see them.
“What we know, unless the administration is magical, is nothing is going to happen tomorrow,” she said.
Kristle Johnson, a 32-year-old full-time nursing student and mother of three in Florida, is concerned about the possibility of reduced benefits.
Despite buying meat in bulk, careful meal planning and not buying junk food, she said, her $994 a month benefit doesn’t buy a full month’s groceries.
“Now I have to deal with someone who wants to get rid of everything I have to keep my family afloat until I can better myself,” Johnson said of Trump.
At a Washington news conference earlier Friday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department runs SNAP, said the contingency funds in question would not cover the cost of the program for long. Speaking at a press conference with House Speaker Mike Johnson at the Capitol, she blamed Democrats for conducting a “disgusting dereliction of duty” by refusing to end their Senate filibuster as they hold out for an extension of health care funds.
A push this week to continue SNAP funding during the shutdown failed in Congress.
To qualify for SNAP in 2025, a family of four’s net income after certain expenses can’t exceed the federal poverty line, which is about $31,000 per year. Last year, SNAP provided assistance to 41 million people, nearly two-thirds of whom were families with children.
“The court’s ruling protects millions of families, seniors, and veterans from being used as leverage in a political fight and upholds the principle that no one in America should go hungry,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said of the Rhode Island decision.
Judges order Trump administration to use emergency reserves for SNAP payments during the shutdown is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
As Democrats across the country devise ways to match Republican redistricting efforts, a long-standing battle over congressional maps has been quietly progressing in one of the nation’s most competitive swing states.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is taking up two gerrymandering lawsuits challenging the state’s congressional maps after years of back-and-forth litigation on the issue. Over the summer, it appeared redistricting efforts would go nowhere before the midterms; the state’s high court in June rejected similar lawsuits.
But liberal groups have found new ways to challenge the maps that the state Supreme Court appears open to considering. This time, plaintiffs are requesting the court appoint a three-judge panel to hear their partisan gerrymandering case, and a new group has stepped into the fray with a lawsuit that argues a novel anticompetitive gerrymandering claim.
The jury is still out on whether those rulings will come in time for 2026.
“Could they be? Yes. Will they be? That’s hard to say,” said Janine Geske, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice.
Some developments in the cases in October indicate that the gerrymandering fight in Wisconsin is far from over.
The justices have allowed Wisconsin’s six Republican congressmen to join the cases as defendants. The congressmen are now looking to force two of the court’s liberal justices, Janet Protasiewicz and Susan Crawford, to recuse themselves from the cases. Both justices were endorsed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin; Protasiewicz criticized the maps on the campaign trail, and Crawford’s donors billed her as a justice who could help Democrats flip seats.
Some are unsure why the Republican congressmen are entering the fight now, months after the liberal groups filed the new cases.
“They took their time to even seek intervention, and now they’re seeking recusal, and now they’re trying to hold up the appointment process. I’m sure their goal is to try to throw sand in the gears of this litigation,” said Abha Khanna, a plaintiff attorney in Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, the partisan gerrymandering case requesting that the courts appoint a three-judge panel to review the maps.
The offices and campaigns of the six Republican congressmen did not respond to requests for comment.
Khanna said her team filed the lawsuit with enough time to potentially redraw the maps, despite the congressmen’s recent actions.
“There certainly is time to affect the 2026 elections,” she said.
This lawsuit lays out a more familiar partisan gerrymandering argument, in which lawyers say Wisconsin’s congressional maps discriminate against Democratic voters. Six of the state’s eight House seats are filled by Republicans, even though statewide elections have been close partisan races. Sens. Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin — a Republican and Democrat, respectively — won their most recent statewide elections by a percentage point or less, while Gov. Tony Evers kept his office by more than 3 percentage points in 2022 (Evers will not be seeking reelection in 2026).
The plaintiffs believe they ultimately have a strong case because the state’s high court ruled in 2023 that the “least change” principle — which dictated the 2021 maps to be drawn “consistent with existing boundaries” of the 2011 maps — should no longer be used as primary criteria in redistricting. The state legislative maps were changed. But the federal district maps were not.
In effect, the maps that were proposed by Evers in 2021 continued on the legacy of Republican gerrymandering, Khanna said. The lawsuit, filed in July, requests the appointment of a three-judge panel to hear the case, after the state Supreme Court in June rejected the plaintiffs’ petition.
“It’s a judicially created metric that violates the principles of the (Wisconsin) constitution,” Khanna said. “This can be decided without any fact-finding at all. The court can decide it as a matter of law, and then we can proceed quickly to a remedial map.”
Not everyone involved is so optimistic that this will be resolved quickly. Jeff Mandell, a plaintiff attorney in the redistricting lawsuit alleging that the maps are illegally too favorable to incumbents — a new argument that hasn’t been tested in the state — said it is “exceedingly unlikely” that new maps could be drawn in time for the midterm elections. Primary candidates must file their nomination papers to the elections commission by June 1, 2026. The final district lines must be in place by spring for candidates to circulate their papers among the right voters.
“If we don’t have maps by the end of March or so, it’s very, very difficult to run the election next November,” Mandell said.
Even if the Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that the current maps are unconstitutional, the most likely scenario would punt the task of redrawing to partisan officeholders, he added — a process that could hinder easy consensus and potentially draw out the timeline for months.
Mandell’s lawsuit is arguably facing a bigger hurdle as it attempts to make the case that the districts are drawn in a way that makes it extremely difficult for challengers to have a real chance.
The exception is Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, where Rep. Derrick Van Orden has won by fewer-than-four-point margins and is currently facing three challengers, including the well-funded Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who lost to him in 2024.
The median margin of victory in Wisconsin’s remaining congressional districts is about 29 percentage points, according to a NOTUS review.
“Thirty points is not something you can overcome by having a really good candidate, it’s not something you can overcome by having a great campaign plan and executing it flawlessly, it’s not something you can overcome when there’s a swing election,” Mandell said.
The next months will prove whether the incumbent argument is convincing to Wisconsin’s justices, who have heard their share of redistricting cases.
This story was produced andoriginally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
Wisconsin’s redistricting fight isn’t over, but will new maps be drawn in time for 2026 election? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
As a 19-year-old election worker in Hennepin County, Minnesota, Lydia McComas discovered how meaningful it was to help voters navigate the process. Less than a decade later, she’s the city clerk in Madison, Wisconsin, overseeing one of the most scrutinized election offices in the state and working to rebuild trust after last year’s ballot mishandling scandal.
Between those two points, McComas followed an unusually direct path: a college internship supporting elections planning, then a full-time job in a county elections office along with a graduate program in election administration.
She’s part of an emerging generation of officials who set out early and very intentionally, through internships and university training, to make a career out of election work. Driving this movement toward professionalized election administration are veterans of the field who recognize the need to replace retiring clerks and have spent years creating a stronger, more sustainable pipeline.
Together they are transforming a profession once dominated by civic-minded volunteers and on-the-job learners.
“I’d love for more young people to get involved with election administration and explore it as a future career,” McComas told Votebeat in an interview.
For now, McComas is an outlier in Wisconsin: At 28, she’s among the youngest to hold a municipal clerk position — and one of the few who pursued the election profession, on purpose, from the outset. Nearly 80% of the state’s chief election officials are over 50, and fewer than half have a college degree or higher, according to the Elections & Voting Information Center.
Her rise comes amid historic turnover that highlights the urgency of developing the pipeline of election officials: Between 2020 and 2024, more than 700 of Wisconsin’s municipal clerks left their posts, the highest churn in the nation.
The new generation is fully aware that the job has changed since many of those veteran clerks started, said EVIC research director Paul Manson, with their work under closer public examination and intense political pressure.
McComas’ new role is about more than elections — she’ll take meeting minutes, process licenses and handle business registrations, among other duties. But her expertise is connecting with voters, the media and community partners and explaining complex election procedures in layman’s terms.
That expertise will be tested immediately in Madison, where trust in the city’s election office is still mending after last year’s controversy over 193 missing ballots. The fallout — investigations, a civil lawsuit, and the suspension and resignation of longtime clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl — left voters demanding transparency.
“There’s pressure to make sure that everything works well, that the public trusts us,” McComas said. She knows the climb will be steep. Most of the staff who weathered that turbulent year remain, seasoned administrators now adapting to greater public scrutiny.
The glare of attention on Madison, she said, mirrors the national reality for election administrators everywhere — their jobs are increasingly under the spotlight of polarization and doubt.
“Last year was really tough, and next year is tough,” McComas said, noting the four statewide elections ahead in 2026.
People take different paths into election administration. Milwaukee’s chief election official, Paulina Gutiérrez, came from public safety and legislative work, while Green Bay Clerk Celestine Jeffreys was the mayor’s chief of staff. Others arrive from outside government — teachers, bankers or longtime poll workers who worked their way up.
McComas’ journey into this world started early. As a kid in Minneapolis, she tagged along with her parents to the polls, filling out mock ballots and proudly wearing an “I will vote” sticker. She also joined them knocking on doors for get-out-the-vote drives. Those formative experiences led her to study political science at the University of Minnesota, volunteer on campaigns and intern for U.S. Sen. Al Franken.
Her time on campaigns confirmed that the partisan side of politics wasn’t for her. “I was used to talking to people regardless of their party,” McComas said. “Working for candidates and not doing that just felt wrong.”
Her first job in elections was a college internship with Hennepin County in 2017, supporting the election department on planning, updating training manuals and legislative priorities. McComas was struck by the precision required in running elections and wanted to devote her career to it, she said.
After graduating, she joined Hennepin County Elections full time, first as a general election administrator and then specializing in voter engagement for a jurisdiction of 700,000 voters in and around Minneapolis. She helped voters get registered and answered questions about voting during a pandemic.
She also oversaw compliance with election laws and developed training for poll workers.
Meanwhile, she pursued a graduate certificate in election administration from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
She was hired in Madison in August.
Academic programs like the one McComas followed, focusing on elections as a career path, are more common today, but still rare at most universities, where public affairs education focuses more on city management, emergency planning and public health, said Tammy Patrick, chief program officer at the National Association of Election Officials and a longtime election administration educator.
The ones that exist are growing: The University of Minnesota’s election program had just over 50 enrollees in 2017. In 2025, there were over 200. In addition to the Humphrey School, Auburn University offers a graduate certificate in election administration, and Northern Arizona University now provides an undergraduate program.
Meanwhile, 43 states, including Wisconsin, have other types of programs to train local election officials, a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis found. Wisconsin is also among the 22 states offering training specific to new election officials. The Arizona Secretary of State’s Arizona Fellows program places students in county election offices, boosting interest in election work and helping offices engage younger, more diverse voters.
Patrick, who has taught at the Humphrey School since 2016, sees an urgent need to formalize the field and promote it to youth because so many older clerks are retiring.
“It’s just not on anyone’s radar as an option,” Patrick said, “and I think that that’s part of the work we need to do as a profession, which is particularly challenging in this environment, because now people are aware of election administration for all the wrong reasons.”
Formalizing the pipeline might be even harder for Wisconsin, where most municipal clerks work part time, and most who work full time spend much of the year working on things besides elections.
McComas said that both Madison and Hennepin County try to do local outreach to universities and have interns to promote election administration as a career path.
Still, she finds herself explaining to many people that running elections is a full-time job, not just a poll-working gig for several days a year.
In Madison, McComas said her first goal is to rebuild trust.
She plans to draw on her voter engagement background to make that happen. Under interim clerk Mike Haas, the city overhauled many of the systems that failed in the 2024 election, but those improvements, she said, went largely unnoticed because there wasn’t a strong communications plan.
“Next year,” she said, “we will be able to show the public that we are transparent and that we are answering any questions.”
Although her career doesn’t go back decades, McComas said her experience has prepared her for this moment. Her graduate certificate program gave her a broader perspective, she said, and helped reaffirm her commitment to the role.
Beyond school, McComas said the work — and the people she met in Hennepin County — sparked a lasting passion for election administration. Surrounded by colleagues who shared her dedication and curiosity, she found a community she wanted to be part of for the long haul.
“I knew I wanted to devote my career to that work,” she said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.
New Madison clerk typifies movement to professionalize election administration is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
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Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to fund SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using contingency funds during the government shutdown.
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Gov. Tony Evers | Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner
Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill Friday that will limit cell phones in schools, making Wisconsin the 36th state in the nation to do so, and a bill that will make it easier for candidates for office to remove themselves from ballots.
A Wisconsin Policy Forum report from May found that most school districts already restrict student cellphone usage to common areas, though policies vary widely across the state.
Under the new law, 2025 Wisconsin Act 42, school districts will have until July 2026 to implement a policy that bans cellphones during instructional times. The policy will need to include exceptions for emergencies, for educational purposes and cases involving student health care, individualized education plans (IEPs) or 504 plans (learning environment accommodations).
Evers said in a statement that the decision about whether to sign the bill weighed heavily on him, especially given his belief that “decisions like this should be made at the local level by local school districts”. However, he said he is “deeply concerned” about how cell phone and social media use are affecting students, including their mental health, school outcomes and social skills.
“Our kids are struggling today, perhaps now more than ever. It’s really tough to be a kid these days, and we know that cellphones can be a major distraction from learning, a source of bullying, and a barrier to our kids’ important work of just being a kid,” Evers said in a statement. “While I wish the Legislature would have taken a different approach with this legislation, I will never stop fighting for Wisconsin’s kids and working to do what’s best for them, which is why I am signing this bill into law today.”
Evers also pointed to widespread support for cellphone ban policies in his statement.
Pew Research recently found that 74% of U.S. adults support banning middle and high school students from using cellphones during class — an increase from 68% last fall. A Marquette Law School poll found that 89% of voters support banning cellphones during class periods.
Evers also signed Assembly Bill 35, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 43, to make it easier for candidates to withdraw themselves from a ballot.
Under the law, candidates for office in Wisconsin will be able to withdraw their candidacy in a general or primary election and not be included on the ballot if they file a sworn statement.
The change to Wisconsin law was proposed after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was not allowed to remove himself from the presidential ballot in 2024 after he dropped out and endorsed President Donald Trump. State law then said that candidates could only have their names removed if they were dead.
The new law will allow candidates to remove themselves, but they’ll be responsible for paying the Wisconsin Elections Commission a $1,000 fee. Non-statewide candidates will need to pay $250.
Under the law, a person could face a Class G felony with a maximum penalty of up to $25,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years if they intentionally filed a false statement withdrawing a person’s candidacy.
Evers also signed Senate Bill 309, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 41, which clarifies statute to say that 911 call centers and dispatchers who transfer a caller to the national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline are generally immune from civil liability for any outcomes resulting from the transfer.
“Our 911 dispatchers play a vital role in the safety and security of our state, but they often don’t have the time or resources available to provide the response necessary for somebody experiencing a mental health crisis,” Evers said. “By offering much-needed protection to 911 dispatchers who transfer calls to the 988 Lifeline, this bill allows for a better and safer crisis response by ensuring crisis calls go to the service providers who are trained to provide appropriate care and resources to those who need it most.”
The law specifies that the immunity doesn’t apply if an injury is the result of an act or omission that constitutes gross negligence or willful misconduct by the dispatcher.
Another bill signed by Evers, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 46, seeks to address the reckless driving issue in Wisconsin by allowing local governments to implement ordinances that will allow officers to immediately impound a vehicle used to drive recklessly and retain the vehicle until all outstanding fees, fines and forfeitures are paid.
Evers said in a statement that the law will “hold bad actors accountable” and help keep roads and communities safe.
“Whether it’s distracted driving, speeding, or erratic and aggressive behaviors, reckless driving puts our kids, families, and communities in harm’s way,” Evers said. “Tackling reckless driving has been a bipartisan goal in recent years, and I’m glad to see this trend has continued this session.”
Evers also vetoed several bills.
The full list of bills upon which Evers took action can be found here.
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Boxes of sugary cereal fill a store's shelves on April 16, 2025, in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Boston ruled Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to pause a food assistance program for 42 million people was illegal — but gave the Trump administration until Monday to respond to her finding before she decides on a motion to force the benefits be paid despite the ongoing government shutdown.
At nearly the same time Friday, a Rhode Island federal judge in a similar case brought by cities and nonprofit groups ordered USDA to continue payments and granted a request for a temporary restraining order.
However, experts and a key member of Congress said that some SNAP recipients still may see delays in their benefits because changes in administration from the federal government to states to vendors take time.
There was also no immediate word from USDA on how it will implement the judicial orders, while the administration sought guidance from the courts.
In a social media post late Friday, President Donald Trump said administration lawyers believed the funds could not legally be paid and that he needed clarification about how to legally distribute SNAP benefits.
In Massachusetts, in a Friday afternoon order, District Court of Massachusetts Judge Indira Talwani said she would continue to take “under advisement” a coalition of Democratic states’ request to force the release of funds from a contingency account holding about $6 billion.
Her ruling came a day before a cutoff of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits to low-income households.
Because Congress is locked in a stalemate over a stopgap spending bill and did not appropriate money for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, administration officials say the program cannot provide federal funds beginning Saturday. In states, SNAP benefits are loaded onto cards on varying dates, but the cutoff would be effective for November benefits.
Talwani, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, called the administration’s conclusion it can’t provide SNAP funding “erroneous,” and said the reserve fund was sufficient for SNAP benefits to flow to states and the vendors that add money to debit-like cards issued to the program’s beneficiaries that are used to purchase groceries.
The law creating the program mandated that benefits continue, she said.
“Defendants are statutorily mandated to use the previously appropriated SNAP contingency reserve when necessary and also have discretion to use other previously appropriated funds,” Talwani wrote.
Talwani ordered the administration to say by Monday whether it would provide at least partial benefits for November.
Trump on social media said that he would be happy to see the funding go out and blamed Democrats for the monthlong shutdown.
“I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible,” Trump wrote. “It is already delayed enough due to the Democrats keeping the Government closed through the monthly payment date and, even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out.”
The government filed a brief in the Rhode Island case asking the judge in that case to clarify how his order could legally be carried out.
Earlier Friday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was noncommittal when asked if the department would comply with an order to resume benefits, according to CNN.
Spokespeople for the Department of Justice, which is representing the administration in the case, did not return messages seeking comment Friday.
The 25 states that sued were Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state, Wisconsin Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. The District of Columbia also sued.
At a press conference with U.S. House Republicans earlier Friday, Rollins said it was “a lie” that the contingency fund could be used to provide benefits.
“There is a contingency fund at USDA, but that contingency fund, by the way, doesn’t even cover, I think, half of the $9.2 billion that would be required for November SNAP,” she said. “But it is only allowed to flow if the underlying program is funded. It’s called a contingency fund, and by law, a contingency fund can only flow when the underlying fund is flowing.”
The judges authoring Friday’s court orders disagreed with Rollins’ argument, which was also at odds with a shutdown plan her own department published on Sept. 30 before quietly deleting it sometime in October. The plan called for SNAP benefits to continue during a shutdown because the contingency fund existed.
“Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds,” the Sept. 30 plan said.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said benefit payments “will likely be delayed by several days or more” and blamed the situation on the administration’s refusal to spend from the contingency fund.
“The administration has chosen to hold hungry families hostage in their partisan political games,” she said in a statement. “It is cruel. It is shameful. And as federal judges in two states have now affirmed, it is illegal.”
In Rhode Island, where the judge granted a temporary restraining order, the advocacy group Democracy Forward, which was among those bringing the suit, praised the move.
“A federal court today granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump-Vance administration’s unlawful effort to halt the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the ongoing government shutdown,” the group said. “The decision ensures that millions of children, seniors, veterans, and families will continue to receive essential food assistance while the case proceeds.”
The judge in that case, John James McConnell Jr., said the administration’s actions violated a key federal administrative law against arbitrary and capricious executive action and federal spending laws “by disregarding Congress’s direction that SNAP must continue operating,” Democracy Forward said.
McConnell also was appointed by Obama.
Friday’s orders will likely not stop some SNAP benefits from at least being delayed, according to Lauren Kallins, a senior legislative director for state-federal affairs at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Even if the Trump administration immediately complied with McConnell’s order that benefits must be released, the process of moving money from the U.S. Treasury to states to vendors to beneficiaries takes time.
“Under the best of circumstances… it’s not a switch that can be flipped on once USDA decides to release funds,” Kallins, whose organization coordinates and advocates for bipartisan state lawmakers in every state, said.
States generally release SNAP funds to beneficiaries on a staggered basis, meaning that different beneficiaries receive their allotments on different days of the month.
With the situation unresolved a day before the new benefits month begins, some are certain to see at least delays in benefits, Kallins said.
“For people who get their allotments in the beginning of the month, there’s definitely going to… be a delay here,” she said.
Additionally, if USDA were to release money only from the contingency fund, it could take states time to determine how to distribute prorated benefits.
On Capitol Hill, the parties appeared no closer Friday to reaching an agreement as the government shutdown stretched into its second month.
House Republicans continued to blame Democrats for the standstill, urging Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to get his caucus behind the House-passed GOP measure to reopen the government at last fiscal year’s spending levels.
“Republicans have done our part to end the Democrat shutdown, and now it’s time for Democrats to do theirs,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday morning.
“The path forward is simple — please, please, every American who is concerned about this, every American that is feeling the harm, you should call the Senate Democrats and tell them to stop the nonsense, echo the voices of the unions, of the airlines, of hardworking people everywhere, and tell them to stop doing this and open the government.”
Democrats have voted against the GOP measure, saying congressional Republicans must negotiate an extension of tax subsidies for those who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
Those subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year, leaving millions to see their premiums skyrocket when they get premium notices beginning Saturday.
Volunteers from No Limits Outreach Ministries in Hyattsville, Maryland, and the Capital Area Food Bank prepare for distribution on Oct. 28, 2025 to furloughed federal workers affected by the government shutdown. People with government employment ID began lining up hours ahead of time. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — By Saturday, millions of Americans are expected to face a drastic spike in health care premium costs during open enrollment, though a hunger crisis may have been temporarily averted, both tied to the ongoing government shutdown.
A federal judge in Massachusetts Friday afternoon found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture acted unlawfully in deciding to withhold billions in emergency funding for 42 million people who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, amid a government shutdown.
But while the ruling does not order USDA to immediately tap into its roughly $6 billion contingency fund, a separate ruling from a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the agency to continue the payments after a coalition of religious and advocacy groups sued.
Prior to both rulings, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins defended USDA’s decision to not use the contingency fund during a Friday press conference at the U.S. Capitol with House Speaker Mike Johnson on day 31 of the government shutdown.
“We are here today because SNAP benefits run dry tomorrow, so the truth has finally revealed itself, hasn’t it?” Rollins said. “Democrats’ support for programs like SNAP is now reduced to cynical control over people’s lives.”
It was not yet clear midday Friday how the two court rulings would be carried out by the administration.
The move to cut off SNAP would leave millions hungry, nearly 40% of them children, and is an effort by the Trump administration to put pressure on Senate Democrats to accept the House-passed GOP stopgap spending bill to fund the government until Nov. 21.
Senate Democrats have held out demanding action on tax credits that will expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, hugely driving up costs.
They have tried to spark negotiations, but Republicans have maintained that talks on health care subsidies will only begin after the government is funded.
As the government shutdown continues, millions of federal workers are furloughed, or have continued to work without pay, including air traffic controllers.
Flight delays and cancellations are starting to mount, with 3,739 delays within, into or out of the United States and 364 cancellations within the United States by midday Friday, according to the FlightAware delays tracker.
Another shutdown complication emerged when President Donald Trump, who has spent most of the week abroad in Asia meeting with foreign leaders over trade and tariff talks, Thursday night urged Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster, which requires a 60-vote threshold.
“Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote on his social media platform. Senate Republicans have been lukewarm on the idea, since Democrats then could do the same if they regain control of the chamber now held by the GOP with 53 seats.
Lacking 60 votes, the Senate has failed 13 times to pass the House-passed stopgap spending measure and left Capitol Hill Thursday night. Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen from Nevada tried to keep the Senate in session, but was overruled by Republicans.
Another critical deadline approaching Friday was pay for active duty military members. Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration would shuffle funds to ensure pay, but did not detail those plans. According to Axios, the Defense Department pulled billions from several accounts to ensure the troops could be paid.
Congress failed to fund SNAP and nearly every other discretionary federal program for the 2026 fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
In order to receive SNAP benefits, a household’s gross monthly income must be at or below 130% of the federal poverty guidelines. A family of four would receive a SNAP maximum monthly allotment of $994, according to USDA.
Rollins sought to justify her agency’s refusal to shuffle the contingency funds to pay for SNAP, saying that money “is only allowed to flow if the underlying program is funded,” and “by law, a contingency fund can only flow when the underlying fund is flowing.”
The Agriculture secretary said that “even if it could flow, it doesn’t even cover half of the month of November.”
USDA said in a memo earlier in October that it would not tap into the contingency fund to keep the program afloat in November, despite its since-deleted Sept. 30 shutdown plan saying it would tap into this reserve.
The memo said the contingency fund “is a source of funds for contingencies, such as the Disaster SNAP program, which provides food purchasing benefits for individuals in disaster areas, including natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, that can come on quickly and without notice.”
Democrats have objected. Friday’s decision from a federal judge in Boston stems from a lawsuit brought by 25 states and the District of Columbia against the Trump administration to force USDA to use the contingency fund.
At the Capitol press conference, Rollins also recalled a recent encounter she had at a Louisiana restaurant with a “wonderful” waiter named Joe, who she said took on that job after being furloughed as a federal government employee due to the shutdown.
“He didn’t know who I was. And I said, ‘Well, Joe, I can appreciate that. You know, I’m sort of in that world as well.’ And I said, ‘Where do you work?’ And he said, ‘Well, I work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in their New Orleans office as part of the financial team.'”
Rollins said that encounter “just really brought home for me … to echo what Mike (Johnson) said, just thanking so many thousands of federal workers who are showing up, who are still doing their job, who aren’t getting paid, those that are now concerned about putting food on the table and making their mortgages and paying their rent.”
Rollins, along with the rest of the president’s Cabinet, is still getting paid.
As open enrollment begins Saturday, those enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace who currently receive a tax credit are likely to see their monthly premium payments more than double to about 114% on average, according to an analysis by KFF.
For the last month, Democrats have warned of this, as the tax credits that help pay for individual health insurance are set to expire at the end of the year.
The top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, said in a statement that many families will see an increase in their premiums on Nov. 1.
“The sticker shock many families will face when they shop for health coverage is unacceptable, and it’s why Congress must act,” Pallone said.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that if Congress does not extend the tax credits, insurers expect healthy, younger people to drop their marketplace coverage plans, which will lead to increased premium costs.
Meanwhile, USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, a program separate from SNAP, got a $300 million infusion from the agency, using tariff revenue, to keep the program running through October.
The program provides nearly 7 million women, infants and children with healthy foods, breastfeeding support, nutrition education and other resources.
Advocates are calling on the administration to supply additional emergency funds for WIC.
Led by the National WIC Association, more than three dozen national organizations signed on to an Oct. 24 letter to the White House urging the administration to provide an additional $300 million in emergency funding.
The consequences of the shutdown are also hitting Head Start — a federal program that provides early childhood education, nutritious meals, health screenings and other support services to low-income families and served more than 790,000 children in the 2023-2024 program year.
The National Head Start Association estimates that 140 programs across 41 states and Puerto Rico serving more than 65,000 children will not receive their operational funding if the shutdown continues past Nov. 1 — a reality that appears certain.
Six of those programs serving more than 6,500 children did not receive this funding on Oct. 1 and have had to look to outside resources and local funds to keep their programs afloat.
American Indian and Alaska Native communities are also scrambling to fill the anticipated gaps in food security and assistance due to funding uncertainties for SNAP and WIC.
Advocates and U.S. senators across the aisle say these funding uncertainties for the key federal nutrition programs are putting particular pressure on Native communities.
At an Oct. 29 Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on the shutdown’s impacts on tribal communities, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith said she is hearing from tribal nations in her state about people switching from SNAP to the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, or FDPIR, a separate USDA initiative.
FDPIR is an alternative to SNAP and, per USDA, provides foods “to income-eligible households living on Indian reservations, and to American Indian households residing in approved areas near reservations and in Oklahoma.”
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