“We always seem to find money for the things we want to fund.”
Those were the words of Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, as he and other Democrats again called on Governor Kay Ivey to call a special session of the Legislature to find funding to keep Alabama’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program feeding families during the government shutdown.
“There’s money there,” Daniels said. “We’ve mentioned before the contingency funds, the Rainy Day funds, that have money available. But there are other sources as well. We could tighten the belts in other areas to make sure we get these folks fed.”
Standing behind signs that read “No Kids Hungry” and “People Need Food,” numerous Democrats from both the Alabama House and Senate were on hand and offered comments on the ongoing situation. Nearly a month into the shutdown now, government workers and soldiers are starting to face dire consequences.
The Republican-led shutdown came about when GOP officials refused to negotiate with Democrats over steep cuts to Americans’ health insurance subsidies. The effects of those cuts, which were part of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and primarily offered benefits to the nation’s wealthiest citizens and companies, started to show up this week—just as Democrats have warned for months now—in shocking insurance rate increases.
In Alabama alone, people have reported being quoted new premium rates that more than triple.
With that backdrop, Republicans and the Trump administration, in hopes of forcing Democrats to sign off on the insurance increases, have allowed SNAP funding to lapse, despite federal contingency funds that are in place to fund the program. Federal judges over the weekend ordered the Trump administration to use those funds to prop up the program for as long as possible—marking possibly the first time in American history that a president has been ordered by the courts to use available funds to feed starving Americans.
Alabama Democrats, in the meantime, want Ivey and state Republicans to find funding to keep Alabama’s SNAP program, which feeds some 750,000 Alabamians, afloat.
“We’re here, we’re ready to work,” Senator Merika Coleman said during the press conference. “We’re ready to make sure that not one child, not one senior citizen, not one disabled person in the state of Alabama goes hungry. We challenge our Republican colleagues to come out as well, because it’s not just the constituents in our districts, it’s all Alabamians.”
Ivey’s office has said repeatedly that the governor has no plans to call a special session and that the issue is a federal one.
In the meantime, Democratic mayors, including Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, have decided that’s not good enough. Woodfin and other mayors have dipped into reserve funds and taken on other means to ensure citizens in their towns have access to food.
