On June 25, House Republicans released the text of their proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) appropriations bill, which funds, among other things, the U.S. Census Bureau. The bill provides the Census Bureau with $1.354 billion—an amount that is well below both the agency’s FY 2024 funding level ($1.382 billion) and the Administration’s FY 2025 budget request ($1.6 billion).

The U.S. Supreme Court Friday ruled that local jurisdictions may ticket and arrest unhoused people for sleeping outside in public places, even when adequate shelter or housing is not available. The 6-3 decision in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Elena Kagan dissenting, immediately drew scathing criticism from advocates for the unhoused.

More than 1,100 organizations from all across the country have signed a letter to congressional leaders, calling on Congress to provide enough funding in next year’s appropriations bills to “invest the amounts needed to meet the needs of our country and protect American competitiveness, economic strength, security, and services critical to families and individuals” and to reject “poison pill policy riders.”  So far, the House Committee on Appropriations has been producing exactly the kinds of funding bills this very large number of groups oppose. 

As the House and Senate consider this year’s farm bill, policymakers must prioritize protecting EBT households from benefits theft by improving the safety features of EBT cards, ensuring the reimbursement process for stolen benefits is swift and efficient, and guaranteeing EBT households have reliable, consistent electronic access to their balance and transaction information.