A federal judge ruled Monday against waivers the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave to five states that allowed them to block recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, from buying sugary drinks and candy.
The affected programs are in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, but similar waivers remain in states throughout the country, including Louisiana. These restrictions are done in the name of encouraging SNAP recipients to eat healthier.
President Donald Trump’s administration has not said whether it will appeal to a higher court.
Louisiana’s ban on sugary drinks and some candy will remain in place, according to a spokesperson from the Louisiana Department of Health.
While SNAP is a federal program, it’s administered by individual states. The waivers to ban the purchase of sugary drinks and candy with SNAP funds came about when these states asked the USDA to waive the federal definition of “food.”
The plaintiffs who are residents from the five states, argued that it was beyond the USDA’s authority to do so. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who sits in Washington and was nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama, agreed, ruling that the department’s reasoning would require a change in statute, which is a power that solely belongs to Congress.
“The federal defendants and the states may have a genuine desire to improve the health of SNAP households by encouraging healthy choices at the store, and they can take lawful steps to meet those goals,” she wrote. “But what they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way.”
Louisiana was not part of the lawsuit to overturn the ban. A separate court would need to rule against the state’s waiver, or the USDA would need to withdraw the waivers.
A spokesperson for LDH said the department will continue to monitor developments and coordinate with its federal partners.
The restrictions have faced pushback from users of the program and advocates for restricting access to food and increasing stigma around the program.
The plaintiffs in this case each have a medical need that these restrictions make it difficult to care for. One is a diabetic who relies on juice boxes and small sodas as a quick means of getting her blood sugar back up, another is a mother of a child with autism who has Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, and many of her daughter’s “safe foods” are affected by these waivers.
Gina Plata-Nino, the SNAP director for the Food Research and Action Center, adds that it’s not just people with food restrictions that are affected. She’s spoken to med students who use SNAP benefits to buy energy drinks to make it through their clinical hours, and people experiencing homelessness who try to maximize their caloric intake.
“ No one is policing the choices that other Americans do,” Plata-Nino said. “So why are we trying to police the choices of these specific Americans?”
She points to programs like the Louisiana Carrot Initiative, where recipients get a rebate when they buy fruits or vegetables at certain stores as a better alternative to encourage people to eat healthy.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
