NASHVILLE - A majority of states across the country have taken formal steps to protect vital SNAP benefits for their residents which are set to run out on November 1st due to the ongoing federal government shutdown. In Tennessee, there is currently no plan to protect benefits for over 690,000 Tennesseans who rely on the program to help put food on their dinner tables.

Today, 25 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit to try and force the United States Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.), which administers the program, to dip into its reserves and provide SNAP benefits to the approximately 42 million Americans who rely on the food assistance program. This legal action follows yesterday's announcements by at least two Republican governors that their respective states will appropriate emergency funds to make sure their residents do not go hungry.

Meanwhile, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and the Republican supermajority continue to do nothing for the one in ten Tennesseans who rely on SNAP to help feed their families. Likewise, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti chose not to join in the lawsuit against the USDA on behalf of Tennessee's families. Last week, House Democrats called on Governor Lee to convene the General Assembly for an extraordinary session for the specific, limited purpose of appropriating emergency state funds to fill in the SNAP funding gap. House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons has repeatedly called on Republicans in the state government to stop wasting time with finger pointing and actually do something to help Tennessee families:

"While most other states across the country are taking immediate, necessary action to help protect their residents, it appears that Tennessee families are going to needlessly suffer once again because they are represented by folks who would rather play politics than do the right thing here. When you consider all that Bill Lee and Republicans have done for corporations and their wealthy pals in recent years, it makes it really hard to accept that they refuse to lift a finger for Tennessee's most vulnerable families. Their willingness to sit on their hands while children go hungry gives one a very strong impression that they neither empathize with or care about their fellow Tennesseans."