Vermont Gov. Phil Scott’s administration complied with a federal request last month to share sensitive data on thousands of Vermonters who receive nutrition assistance from the government — a move that has drawn sharp criticism from top Democratic officials and the state’s leading advocacy organization for fighting systemic food insecurity.
The Republican governor said the federal government was well within its legal rights to ask for the data, and that his administration was merely following the law by providing it. But Democrats, including Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark, pointed to how 20 other states have challenged the legality of the same request in a federal lawsuit. The suit, which was filed last week, is currently pending before a judge in San Francisco.
Disagreement over whether Vermont should have pushed back, too, underscores how leaders at the highest levels of state government have adopted different tacts in response to the slew of controversial actions the Trump administration has taken since the start of the year.
Vermont Public first reported that Scott’s administration handed over data about recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits.
“Capitulating to the Trump Administration will not keep Vermonters safe from their harmful agenda,” Mike Pieciak, Vermont’s Democratic treasurer, said in a statement. “The President’s threats are often hollow and they do not withstand legal scrutiny. But the choice not to fight will have real and immediate consequences for Vermonters.”
At issue is a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture request that state governments, before July 30, disclose certain details on people who have received, or applied to receive, SNAP benefits since the start of 2020. That information should include, per a department memo, names, birthdays, social security numbers and addresses.
Vermont Public reported that Scott’s administration is not providing the federal government with information related to people’s immigration status.
The request, according to the agriculture department, was making good on a Trump executive order aimed at curbing “waste, fraud and abuse” in SNAP programs and improving federal officials’ access to information about who is receiving benefits.
About 65,000 people in Vermont currently rely on the state’s SNAP program, which is known as 3SquaresVT. However, as many as 14,000 of them, including 1,600 refugees and asylum seekers, could lose access to some or all of those benefits in the coming years under cuts laid out in the GOP-led spending bill Trump signed into law last month.
Scott’s office said in a statement late Tuesday that “although the federal government’s approach has been unnecessarily political,” Vermont had no choice but to comply because the feds are “legally entitled” to the information they asked for. His office also contended that not complying with the order “could put thousands of Vermont’s most vulnerable at risk.”
“When there is clear evidence of harm to Vermonters, the Scott Administration will continue to push back against such decisions and requests,” the governor’s office said. “Despite all the political drama on this issue, this is not one of those moments. Again, the facts matter. And the facts here are clear: everything we have provided to the federal government is within the limits of long-established law.”
The states that sued the Trump administration, though, have a different interpretation of that same request. In the lawsuit, led by Democratic attorneys general from California and New York, state leaders argue that the agriculture department’s request is illegal because individuals’ data is likely to be used for purposes beyond the scope of administering SNAP benefits — namely, conducting immigration enforcement, they said.
The suit also contends that the Trump administration has threatened to hold up funding for SNAP benefits in retaliation against states that have not turned over recipients’ data. The attorneys general have asked a judge to block the department from collecting the personal information in question and to bar the department from withholding funds.
“USDA’s attempt to collect this information from Plaintiff States flies in the face of privacy and security protections in federal and state law,” the lawsuit states.
Vermont’s Democratic attorney general, Charity Clark, has sued the Trump administration more than two dozen times since Trump took office in January. Last month, she joined a multistate suit challenging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ move to share Medicaid recipients’ personal data with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees federal immigration enforcement.
Clark said Wednesday that her office wanted to sue to block the SNAP data sharing, however, “the governor’s approach has everything to do with why Vermont is not a party to that lawsuit.”
She declined to elaborate on Scott’s decision, citing her role as the state’s chief litigator.
“The governor and I have taken different approaches at times. But he’s the governor, and this is his prerogative,” Clark said.
Scott’s decision also drew opposition from advocates for nutritional assistance programs in the state.
Anore Horton, executive director of the nonprofit Hunger Free Vermont, called the governor’s decision “troubling” in a statement Wednesday. The organization is also urging people to write to the governor with their opposition to the move.
“This is a clear overreach,” Horton said, referring to the data sharing. “It violates both the law and the basic expectations of privacy that millions of families rely on when they apply for SNAP. States are being forced into an impossible position: comply and risk violating the privacy of their resident, or refuse and face political retaliation.”
Scott has not granted all of the Trump administration’s wishes in recent months. In late July, for instance, he denied a White House request for a dozen members of the Vermont National Guard to do clerical work supporting federal immigration enforcement. The guard members would have been stationed in St. Albans, which is home to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office. Scott said he did not think the request was an effective use of the state government’s limited resources.
Earlier this year, though, Scott was at odds with a group of Democratic state senators over the senators’ calls for him to terminate a contract that allows federal immigration authorities to hold detainees at state-run prisons. Senators said ending the agreement would send a clear message that Vermont wasn’t willing to cooperate with the Trump administration’s toughened immigration enforcement. However, Scott — along with some advocates — argued ending the contract might mean detainees would be transferred to other states where they might face worse detention conditions.
Scott has publicly criticized Trump for years and voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. He made national headlines in 2020 when he was the only Republican governor in the country to publicly announce his vote for Joe Biden.
Since the latest election, though, he’s repeatedly argued that steps Vermont takes to oppose the Trump administration could make the state — which is heavily reliant on federal dollars to support key government services — a target for a president who has long used retribution as a governing tactic.
“As the Governor has said, we cannot live in chaos for the next three and a half years,” Scott’s office said this week. “Vermont will continue to evaluate all requests and actions by the federal administration based on reality — not rhetoric.”
