Sen. John Fetterman on Tuesday joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers in introducing the Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act, a bill that would let people use SNAP benefits to buy hot rotisserie chicken. The Pennsylvania Democrat signed onto the measure led by Republican Sen. Jim Justice, a move that puts a plain-language food fight into the middle of the Senate.
Fetterman pitched the idea as an affordability play, saying, “America’s best (and delicious) affordability play is Costco’s $4.99 rotisserie chicken... it’s one of my family’s favorites and I’m proud to join this bill with Senator Justice for all to try,” and adding that “SNAP funds would be well spent to feed our nation’s families who need it.” The bill has three cosponsors.
SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, gives low-income households Electronic Benefit Transfer cards that work like debit cards. Those benefits are normally limited to staple foods such as vegetables, meats and breads that are usually prepared at home. Under current rules, cooked rotisserie chickens can already be bought with SNAP if they have been cooled down, but the new bill would change the definition of food in the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to include hot rotisserie chicken.
The proposal is narrow. It would not open the program to other hot foods, even as Fetterman backs a separate bill that would allow hot foods and hot prepared foods more broadly. That measure, introduced by members of the Democratic caucus last March, has not moved forward.
The contrast fits Fetterman’s recent pattern. Last year, he introduced a bill that would let the USDA repay people whose money was stolen from their EBT cards, and that effort also has not progressed. This time, the target is more specific and easier to explain: a hot chicken at the grocery store that is already cheap, already familiar and, under the bill, newly eligible for SNAP purchase.
The question the bill leaves behind is not whether the idea is memorable. It is whether Congress is willing to make a one-item exception for a comfort-food staple while broader SNAP changes keep going nowhere.
