Dishonorable Conduct Award Winner—Judge John McConnell

Thomas Jipping | Hans von Spakovsky | November 17, 2025
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Graphic of finger pushing down the scales of justice.

(Cemile Bingol via Getty Images)
Thomas Jipping @TomJipping

Thomas Jipping is a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Hans von Spakovsky @HvonSpakovsky

Hans von Spakovsky is the manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He is the host of Heritage’s "Case in Point" podcast.
We awarded our October Dishonorable Conduct Award to California Judge Edward Chen in the first of our new series on judges who ignore or twist the law and the Constitution to get the policy outcome they desire. Our November award, unfortunately, goes to Rhode Island Judge John McConnell for his decision on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which was a blatant and obvious violation of the Constitution.

More than 150 years ago, the French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “there is hardly a political question in the United States which does not, sooner or later, turn into a judicial one.” He had no idea just how right he was. Rogue judges like Chen and McConnell continue trying to run the executive branch by interfering in President Donald Trump’s policy decisions and constitutional and statutory authority.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and shares its administration with state agencies. Last year, the program spent $100 billion to help nearly 42 million Americans. Congress provides funding in the annual appropriations bill that covers the Department of Agriculture.
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This year, two weeks before the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, House Republicans introduced HR 5371, which would continue the same level of department funding through Jan. 30, 2026, while the annual appropriations bills were being finalized.

The October Dishonorable Conduct Award: Judges Who Threw Out the Statute With the Bathwater

The House passed HR 5371 on Sept. 19. In the Senate, however, a simple majority can pass a bill, but only if a 60-vote supermajority allows a final vote. A group of 44 Democrats and one Republican blocked a final vote on the continuing resolution, allowing funding for the Agriculture Department and the food assistance program to run out. The same 45 senators would keep the government closed by blocking a vote on the funding bill 13 more times.

The statute authorizing SNAP addresses possible appropriation shortfalls in two ways. First, it provides for a contingency fund “for use only in such amounts and at such times as may become necessary to carry out program operations.” This fund is typically used in cases of natural disasters and, when the fiscal year ended, contained enough to cover about two weeks of SNAP benefits.
Second, the statute limits benefits to the amount appropriated each year and requires that state agencies reduce SNAP benefits “to the extent necessary to comply with” that limitation.

On Oct. 30, a coalition of municipalities and nonprofit organizations filed a federal lawsuit in Rhode Island, asking McConnell to order the Trump administration to pay full SNAP benefits during November despite the lack of an appropriation from Congress.

While the department authorized use of SNAP contingency funds to pay at least partial benefits for November, McConnell went even further. He not only ordered the administration to pay full SNAP benefits but required covering the shortfall by transferring billions of dollars from a permanent appropriation already designated by Congress for other funding, such as the National School Lunch Program.

The Supreme Court has recognized many times that executive branch agencies have the authority and discretion to allot funds appropriated by Congress among competing priorities. McConnell’s decision in this case, however, went beyond hijacking the Department of Agriculture’s discretion.
Federal law provides that SNAP benefits may not exceed the amount appropriated for a particular fiscal year and that shortfalls must be handled by reducing benefits. McConnell apparently did not like those statutory directives, and so he came up with his own. He thought Congress should have created the option of raiding other federal programs and redirecting funds. Congress did not do that, so McConnell attempted to do it for them.

In other words, he used a single order to invade the authority of not one, but two other branches of government. He turned himself into both the president and a one-man Congress. It is only Congress—not federal judges like McConnell—that has the authority under the Spending Clause, Section 8 of Article I, to appropriate revenue and to decide how that revenue will be spent in government programs that Congress, not judges, creates, like the SNAP program.

The Department of Justice asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit to stay this lawless order and, because McConnell had given the administration mere hours to comply, also asked the Supreme Court to step in. As everyone knows by now, the Senate passed HR 5371 on Nov. 10, and House members were returning to Washington to do the same. This would obviously restore SNAP funding and make any debate about stopgap or contingency spending moot. That’s at least how it should have been handled.
The 1st Circuit, however, not only waited until after the Senate vote to rule on McConnell’s order but, inexplicably, refused to set it aside, even though the court conceded that there was a “serious argument” that McConnell did not have the authority to second-guess the department’s decision on allocating funds.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court stepped in so that this political conflict could be resolved politically. On Nov. 11, the court stayed McConnell’s order until midnight on Nov. 13. That gave the House time to pass HR 5371 and for Trump to sign it into law.

Far too many political questions become judicial ones. The public understands too little about how the judicial branch is supposed to operate, and judges who step outside their constitutional lane and interfere with decisions the Constitution has assigned to the political branches only make it worse.

McConnell should have dismissed this case the moment it was filed, especially when refusing to do so meant he was displacing both the executive and legislative branches in this conflict.

For his obvious violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal law, Judge McConnell has earned our November Dishonorable Conduct Award.
Judge John McConnell, smiling, in his black robe.

Judge John McConnell, smiling, in his black robe.

Judge John McConnell (U.S. District Court of Rhode Island)

Dishonorable Conduct Award Winner—Judge John McConnell

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