EDITORIAL NOTE: After this story was broadcast, a federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration must use emergency funds to pay for SNAP, but left the details of how that’s done to the administration.
New Mexico’s federal lawmakers are pushing bills aimed at bankrolling food assistance, which is set to stop Saturday amidst the ongoing government shutdown. U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan and U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, both Democrats, are sponsoring bills aimed at stopping that, and said both the money and the votes are there.
Lujan’s bill would fund both the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and Women’s Infants and Children’s offshoot, better known as WIC. He announced his bill Wednesday morning with Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Chuck Schumer. He said his bill has the support of all the Democratic senators and enough Republicans to get 60 votes, but says Republican leadership refuses to put the bill up for a vote in either chamber.
“Speaker Johnson lied to the American people saying, ‘Oh, the law does not allow for this to happen.’ It's bull****,” he said. “I'll say it. I come from a small farm. I know the difference of good soil and the bull**** that goes in it, and this is the bull**** taking these plans down to try to lie to the American people and justify why it's okay for people to go hungry — 40 million people, plain and simple.”
Stansbury’s bill, announced Tuesday, is similar to Lujan’s, both funding the programs and ensuring that funding would remain available in any future possible incidents. Although the House has been in recess for about six weeks, She said getting her particular bill passed isn’t the point.
“It's our hope that by filing additional legislation, this will put continued bipartisan pressure on both sides of the aisle to get something done,” she said, “because we cannot allow families to go without food.”
The state has announced it will tap $30 Million to help pay for 10 days of partial SNAP benefits. Beyond that, the state will lean on school meal programs and charitable organizations, and has tapped $8 million to give to food banks to help prepare.
“Our food banks are telling us directly that they do not have both the financial resources and the infrastructure to make up the unmet need,” she said. “And so we ask anyone out there who's able to assist, please volunteer, donate, do whatever you can to connect our food banks with food resources and help fellow New Mexicans.”
More than 21% of New Mexicans and about a quarter of all kids rely on SNAP, according to advocates, the largest percentage in the nation. The shutdown has been ongoing since Oct.1.
Support for this coverage comes from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
