Gov. Andy Beshear joins lawsuit to force feds to fund SNAP during shutdown
Editor’s note, 2:52 p.m. Oct. 31: In a bench ruling out of Rhode Island Friday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay federal nutrition benefits to millions of Americans amid the government shutdown using emergency funds. It wasn’t immediately clear if and when SNAP benefits will proceed.
Kentucky has joined a lawsuit to force the federal government to fund a program that helps nearly 600,000 Kentucky residents buy groceries, Gov. Andy Beshear said Tuesday.
Multiple governors and state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Tuesday after President Donald Trump’s administration said it would not tap a $5 billion contingency fund to help pay for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP. Those benefits will no longer be funded starting Nov. 1 due to the federal government shutdown.
Beshear and other Democratic governors and attorneys general said they believe the federal government has to fund the program, which 42 million Americans rely on to pay for groceries.
“We are absolutely looking at that,” Beshear said of a possible lawsuit earlier on Tuesday. “The law that created SNAP says it should be funded.”
After Beshear’s Tuesday press conference, 25 governors and state attorneys general announced they had filed the lawsuit in Boston federal court.
The lawsuit asks the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which funds and oversees the SNAP program, to use available contingency funds for November SNAP benefits.
Beshear has previously said the state does not have money to fund SNAP benefits for November, which would cost about $106 million. During a press conference Tuesday about increases to insurance premiums, Beshear said the Trump administration had previously told states that it could not work with private vendors that support the SNAP program.
“The sad part about this is there are emergency funds that are right there. All the Trump administration has to do is say we’re going to use them,” Beshear said. “In fact, the Trump administration is talking about providing Argentina a $20 billion bailout during a government shutdown, but won’t provide SNAP benefits food assistance for our own people. That’s not very America first.”
Meanwhile, Republican Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman joined 18 other Republican attorneys general in a Tuesday letter urging Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to return to Congress and pass a continuing resolution that would reopen the government.
“I joined @OhioAG and 17 other AGs to call on Senator Schumer to prevent this avoidable harm. We don’t need a partisan lawsuit. We just need to pass this bipartisan bill,” Coleman said in a social media post on X.
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 11:59 AM.
