{"id":32125,"date":"2022-03-23T07:37:05","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T13:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=32125"},"modified":"2022-03-23T07:37:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T13:37:05","slug":"snap-eligibility-expansion-advanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=32125","title":{"rendered":"SNAP eligibility expansion advanced"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bill that would eliminate a lifetime ban on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eligibility for felony drug convictions advanced from general file March 22.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Megan Hunt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under current state law, an individual with three felony convictions for use or possession of a controlled substance or one felony conviction for distribution or intent to sell or distribute a controlled substance is prohibited from receiving SNAP benefits.<\/p>\n

LB121, introduced by Omaha Sen. Megan Hunt, would overturn that prohibition and allow individuals with felony drug convictions to receive SNAP benefits only if they have completed their sentence or are on parole, probation or in post-release supervision.<\/p>\n

Hunt said protections exist to prevent SNAP recipients from selling their benefits and that it is unfair to single out drug felonies as the only crime that carries such a prohibition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wrong that somebody can get convicted of distribution of marijuana at age 18 \u2026 and then be unable to receive SNAP benefits 15 years later,\u201d Hunt said. \u201cIt only becomes [clearer] what a great injustice this is when you realize that someone could have served time for murder, for rape, for robbery, for child molestation \u2013 anything \u2013 and they would still be eligible for SNAP.\u201d<\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. Terrell McKinney supported the bill. He said individuals released from prison would be less likely to reoffend if they have access to food. Policies like the lifetime ban are outdated and punitive, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a person serves a year, six months or even five years in prison, isn\u2019t that enough? What else do we need from these people?\u201d McKinney said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Julie Slama of Sterling opposed LB121, saying she did not support expanding SNAP benefits to drug felons. She suggested possibly amending the bill during the next round of debate to exclude all individuals with felony convictions from eligibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cNebraska has a very expansive SNAP eligibility criteria and I actually do support reining that in,\u201d Slama said.<\/p>\n

Senators advanced LB121 to select file on a 25-17 vote. Twenty-five votes were needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill that would eliminate a lifetime ban on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eligibility for felony drug convictions advanced from general file March 22. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[253],"class_list":["post-32125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-human-services","tag-sen-megan-hunt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/LB121Hunt3-22-22a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32125"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32127,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32125\/revisions\/32127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}