In Washington this week, the most important topic continued to be the government shutdown and the failure of Congress to do its job and all that means for people across the country.

Speaker Johnson has not scheduled a vote in the House in 42 days.  He has not reconvened the House to resolve the government shutdown, health care crisis, or the emergency shortfall in food assistance funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for November.  As 3.5 million Texans–including 1.7 million children–are set to lose their SNAP benefits tomorrow, Speaker Johnson has decided that the House of Representatives’ work is done.

This week, the Senate again voted on the same government funding measure it has considered more than a dozen times, and it failed again.  The Senate has now gone home for the weekend.

Food Assistance Cuts.  Tomorrow, 42 million Americans will lose access to food assistance and be at risk of going hungry in November.  Why?  Because the Trump administration is choosing to use hunger as a political weapon by withholding emergency SNAP funding from hungry seniors and families with children—even though the administration has access to $5 billion in emergency reserve funding to keep food assistance flowing.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as food stamps, is the largest anti-hunger program in the country.  The program provides monthly benefits to help tens of millions of Americans—12 percent of the U.S. population—put food on the table for their families and children.  And regardless of whether you are eligible, SNAP contributes $10.73 billion in economic growth to Texas, makes up 12 percent of all grocery sales, and supports more than 94,000 Texas jobs.

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have supported SNAP since Congress enacted the program in 1964, and SNAP benefits have not lapsed since—Congress even appropriates emergency reserve funding to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to cover SNAP benefits in the event of a shutdown.  But for the first time in the program’s 60-year history, American families will not receive their SNAP funds because the Trump administration refuses to spend the $5 billion emergency reserve fund intended to cover SNAP benefits this November.  The administration’s claim that USDA is not legally allowed to tap into these emergency funds is baseless and directly defies Congress’ intent.  In fact, USDA’s own shutdown protocol (dated September 30 of this year) contradicts this latest claim, stating that USDA acknowledged these emergency SNAP funds are indeed available to cover SNAP benefits—up until President Trump made the conscious decision to keep American families hungry.  (It is worth noting that the Trump administration has now deleted this shutdown protocol from the USDA website.)

On Tuesday, more than two dozen states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that the federal government has a legal obligation to release the contingency funds to states to fund SNAP benefits during the shutdown and outlining the harms that will come from its failure to do so.  I am sorry to say that Texas is not one of them. 

Several states are also planning to tap into their own emergency funds to offer food benefits, support local food banks, or direct their state’s National Guard to help facilitate donations in the absence of SNAP. 

Texas ranks second in the country for the highest number of SNAP recipients, with one in six households receiving SNAP funds.  More than 3.5 million Texans receive SNAP benefits—1.7 million of whom are children.  Governor Abbott, however, has yet to take action or weigh in on the matter, despite the urgency facing millions of Texans and their families.  At this time, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which is charged with distributing SNAP benefits in Texas, simply has a notice on its website stating "November SNAP benefits will not be issued at this time.” 

To cut off food assistance to these Texas families in need and the millions of Americans across the country when a pathway is available to fund SNAP is unlawful and unconscionable.  In TX-07, 35,219 households are at risk of not being able to put food on their tables beginning tomorrow—more than half of which are families with children and more than a third of which are living with a senior or are seniors themselves.  President Trump needs to stop playing politics with hungry seniors and families with children and release these SNAP funds now. 

I have been working with my colleagues in Congress and leaders here at home in our community to address this crisis.  I talked to KRLD’s Barbara Schwarz about it this week, too, and you can listen to some of my interview with her below.

Throughout the government shutdown, President Trump has continued to fire federal workers.  As I have previously written to you, among the federal workers targeted in the layoffs was the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Population Affairs (OPA), effectively halting federal support for Title X family planning services.  As a reminder, Title X was born in TX-07—in 1970, then-Congressman George H.W. Bush of Texas’ Seventh Congressional District introduced the Title X Family Planning Program, which covers a range of reproductive health services, including pregnancy testing and counseling, contraceptive services, and wellness exams.  Title X-funded health care centers are lifelines in American communities and the dismantling of this office deprives Americans of critical services at 3,853 health care centers across the country.  This week, I led an effort with Congresswoman Judy Chu (CA-28), Congresswoman Dina Titus (NV-01), Congresswoman Sharice Davids (KS-03), and nearly 100 of our Democratic colleagues in sending a letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., expressing our concerns about the termination of the OPA employees and asking the secretary to reinstate these critical workers.  You can read our letter here.

So many people have told me this week how much the demolition of the historic public entry to the White House to make room for a $300 million White House ballroom has distressed them—both in substance and in symbolic significance.  As I wrote last week, it is a powerful illustration of how this Administration is unchecked and unaccountable, creating lasting damage to American institutions.  This week, I joined my colleagues in sending a letter to President Trump authored by my friend and colleague Jamie Raskin opposing the destruction of the East Wing.

I am sorry to report that our team is continuing to see delays in raising and resolving constituent matters at key federal agencies.  As we enter the fifth week without government funding, our constituent advocates are experiencing delays in getting responses, and many agencies have announced that they will not respond to inquiries from congressional offices during the shutdown.  This week, we learned that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and the Small Business Administration (SBA), have all stopped issuing congressional casework responses during the shutdown.  These agencies join the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which had already announced that they would not respond to casework until after the shutdown.

Our team is committed to helping you and keeping you informed.  We will continue to update the shutdown information page of my website as we learn new information about what to expect and how the ongoing shutdown may impact you.