The Louisiana House of Representatives and Senate have agreed to ask the Landry administration to fund SNAP.
Last week, the administration warned SNAP recipients — Louisiana has more than 800,000 residents who receive the benefit, also known as food stamps — that the federal government shutdown meant that no benefits would be loaded on their cards for November.
Also last week, the House passed a concurrent resolution "to urge and request the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health to take immediate action utilizing any available revenue source to address the suspension of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits caused by the federal government shutdown."
On Wednesday, the Senate also passed the resolution as well.
The resolution does not have the force of law and does not allocate any funding. However, it does urge LDH to use money from the Revenue Stabilization Trust Fund; the resolution passed the House 97-8 and the Senate 32-1, and state officials are allowed to use money from the Trust Fund only in an emergency and with the consent of two-thirds of the members of the legislature.
Gov. Jeff Landry declared a state of emergency on this issue last week. Tuesday morning, he sent out notice that he would have a press conference this afternoon at 2 p.m. to discuss SNAP benefits. The Senate met at 11 a.m. and had only this resolution on their agenda.
SNAP benefits for Louisiana's residents cost about $150 million per month. More than 18 percent of Louisiana residents receive the benefit, a very large portion of them are children. Louisiana ranks third in the nation in terms of percent of residents receiving the benefit.
Here's the resolution:
