Posted on 06/22/2026 5:38:55 PM PDT by Red Badger
A federal judge on Monday shut down the Trump Administration’s pilot program restricting the purchase of soda and junk food with SNAP benefits.
US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins applied the wrong law in approving a pilot program for states that wanted to restrict junk food purchases.
23 states applied for the pilot program in an effort to limit the purchase of soda, candy and other junk food.
Plaintiffs in five states filed the lawsuit against Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.
Judge Berman Jackson’s ruling applies to five states: West Virginia, Tennessee, Colorado, Iowa and Nebraska.
Politico reported:
A federal judge on Monday scrapped a set of state pilot programs intended to restrict the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program money to purchase unhealthy foods.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, wrote in her decision that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who oversees the SNAP program, misapplied federal law in approving requests from states to allow them to impose limits on what participants can buy with funds from the nation’s largest food aid program. Her ruling applies to Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia.
“With her solicitation and approval of the pilot projects in this case, the Secretary purports to waive not just a mere administrative or technical obstacle, but the very definition of ‘food’ as it was laid down by Congress,” Berman wrote. “Neither the USDA nor the states can force this square peg into a round hole to avoid the plain language of the statute and the requirements of 2026(k),” referencing the part of the statute that addresses projects to help improve SNAP households’ health status.
Jackson’s ruling could jeopardize one of the biggest policy achievements of the Make America Healthy Again agenda. Rollins and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have urged states to submit food restriction plans, arguing that they will improve health outcomes and that federal dollars shouldn’t be funding junk food.
Kennedy also incentivized the states to apply by tying some federal rural health care funding to whether states had applied for a waiver to limit foods like soda in SNAP.
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The DC swamp is in a constant state of circling the wagons...
I wonder what Amy Berman Jackson’s stripper name is...
We need to go full Pinochet before it’s too late.
How does one (or a group) go about “full Pinochet”?
Specifically?
Do da ho have “standing” in this snapper case? Probably not.
Orange juice has as many calories as a soda.
I love V-8. I wish there was less salt...so I buy Tomato juice.
I think they have to define "soda". Plenty of drinks with a tad of Lemon...or whatever...
Pronto.
We need to remove these activists calling themselves judges from the benches once and for all.
I admit I don’t know exactly what’s in the junk food category. Some of these foods do wind up in sack/box lunches that get handed out to homeless, kids, or barely working people. I’d rather a small bag of potato chips than nothing.
So Amy baby...who has priority?...Social Security recipients or illegal Snappers?
The Congress can set limits to each inferior courts power and what they can and cannot do. They can ever dismantle said courts. The Supreme Court is the only one that has a constitutional existence. All others are created by Congress and can be reined in as needed...........
But you just know some Podunk judge in Stumpwater, Texas would declare it unconstitutional if they tried..........
No cash unless you are employed somewhere and that's how they pay you. The way it used to be. I'm sick of seeing EBT and SNAP cards used at the checkout to purchase prime cuts of meat and lobster and bags of shrimp at Walmart. And believe me I see it every damned week. The same ones. An anchor baby, a pretty Latina wife, and the husband with gold chains around his neck and a gold watch the size of a motorcycle headlight around his wrist. And no English. What is with these people and their addiction to gold? How do you wear gold and receive welfare benefits at the same time?
I get the vibe tha these judges were personally picked for their activism..................
So let me get this straight, WE the taxpayer have to pay for some grifter on SNAP to get SODA and CANDY..not actual food but SODA and CANDY on OUR DIME
I smell Big Ag behind how food was defined in statute.
Apparently so.............
Then when they get morbidly obese and develop diabetes, heart disease and all other kinds of health problems we get to pay for that too!............
Well hey that is what Ozempic is for
Never underestimate the contribution of US law schools to the destruction of the US.
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