The Supreme Court’s reserves have dried up as a result of the government shutdown.
On Friday, Supreme Court Public Information Officer Patricia McCabe said in a statement that the court “expects to run out of funding on October 18” and “if new appropriated funds do not become available” after that, “the Court will make changes in its operations to comply” with federal law.
As alarming as that sounds, not much is expected to change about the actual Supreme Court’s ability to function. The physical Supreme Court building will be closed to the public, but the judges of the Court will still perform their essential duties, including issuing rulings on three major cases regarding the Voting Rights Act, Trump’s tariffs, and Trump’s appeal to deploy the military to Chicago.
The nation’s courts are also expected to see their piggy banks go empty by Monday, Oct. 20. Judges across the country will still continue to work, but in a capacity limited by the outlines of the Anti-Deficiency Act.
“Examples of excepted work include activities necessary to perform constitutional functions under Article III, activities necessary for the safety of human life and protection of property, and activities otherwise authorized by federal law,” reads a statement on the U.S. Courts website. “Excepted work will be performed without pay during the funding lapse. Staff members not performing excepted work will be placed on furlough.”
Federal judges are required to be paid in a shutdown, but some court staff will work without pay, if they’re required to work at all. The Trump administration has floated never paying federal workers their owed back pay, despite the president signing a bill that required the government to pay federal workers back pay during his first administration.
The shutdown seems destined to stretch into a fourth week as Republicans refuse to budge on Democrats’ demands to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. As October has dragged on, Democrats have signaled they also want Trump to reverse his unprecedented of mass firings of federal workers (in “Democrat” programs, as Trump has repeatedly put it), and that they also want Trump involved in the agreement.
Democrats like Mark Kelly have expressed that they feel Republican House and Senate leaders Mike Johnson and John Thune won’t do anything without Trump’s approval.
Johnson announced that he was sending the House of Representatives home for yet another week on Friday, and still refuses to swear in Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who is the deciding signature on a petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.
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