Updates About Lower Court Rulings

In response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announcing that SNAP benefits would not be distributed for the month of November, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel joined a lawsuit with 24 other states arguing the USDA unlawfully suspended the funds. Recently, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must provide partial benefits to SNAP recipients while the federal government shutdown continues. Judge Indira Talwani from the U.S District Court for Massachusetts ruled that the USDA is required to use the appropriated contingency funds for the program.

The Trump administration has insisted that the use of contingency funds is not legally permitted to cover benefits. However, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins argued that because SNAP is not currently funded, the emergency SNAP benefits cannot be distributed. In 2019, the USDA used contingency funds in response to that year’s government shutdown. The pausing of the benefits was set to affect over 42 million Americans nationwide, including 1.4 million Michigan residents.

Following Judge Talwani’s ruling, President Trump instructed his lawyers to ask for clarification from the court on how they can legally fund SNAP. The USDA reported that its contingency fund could only cover approximately half of November’s benefits, leaving no funds available for future months. The USDA was also instructed by the court to notify them if tariff revenue dollars can be used to support SNAP benefits; USDA officials and U.S. Department of Justice lawyers declined the request.

The USDA notified the Michigan Department of Health and Humans Services that the partial SNAP benefits will begin to be distributed on Saturday, November 8th.

Lansing District Judge Kristen Simmons rejected all criminal charges against a group of 15 Republican electors who forged a counterfeit public document containing their own signatures claiming that then-presidential candidate Donald Trump had won Michigan in the 2020 election.

Simmons ruled that the defendants were not culpable of any criminal activity because they were acting under the direction of Trump attorney Shawn Flynn, and the Michigan Attorney General’s office had failed to establish probable cause. Therefore, the electors believed they were exercising their constitutional right to raise concerns about election fraud to the U.S. Senate.

A federal court in northern California has issued a preliminary injunction preventing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) from providing Medicaid recipients’ personal healthcare information to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The ruling comes after a coalition of attorneys general in several states, including Michigan’s Dana Nessel, challenged DHHS’ decision to share this private medical information for immigration enforcement purposes.

The court determined that DHHS and DHS had not done their due diligence through thorough consideration of how to limit the scope of medical information shared before suddenly changing their well-established privacy policy. The court order prevents DHHS from sharing Medicaid data with DHS until after the lawsuit is completed or a comprehensive rulemaking process weighing the legal ramifications has been conducted.