Judge halts $500 monthly basic income payments for low-income St. Louis families after conservative challenge

• A judge halted a St. Louis basic income program after a lawsuit called it unconstitutional.
• The city planned about $220,000 in payments before it was blocked.

A basic income program designed to help the poorest residents in St. Louis will have to hold off on payments after a judge sided with conservatives who called the program "unconstitutional" in a lawsuit.

Two residents — Greg Tumlin and Frank Hale — filed the lawsuit against the city in June, challenging a program that would have given 540 low-income families payments of $500 a month.

The lawsuit cites a clause in the state's constitution prohibiting all municipalities and political corporations from granting "public money or property to any private individual."

St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Joseph Whyte barred the program from sending out payments for at least 15 days starting on Friday, according to The Center Square, a news site that covers local and state politics. The city planned to deposit about $220,000 into recipients' accounts before the block, the outlet reported.

In April, the Texas Supreme Court blocked a similar program in Houston after the state attorney general filed a lawsuit also questioning its constitutionality.

That lawsuit followed a request from Republican state Sen. Paul Bettencourt. Bettencourt said in a letter to the attorney general's office that the Texas constitution prohibits state lawmakers from giving any county the power to grant public money for the aid of an individual.

Tumlin previously told Business Insider in a statement that the program in St. Louis is unconstitutional because the city can't give people cash if they haven't "performed a service for the city or sold any goods" that would warrant payment from the city.

Whyte wrote in his filing that the payments would cause "immediate and irreparable injury, loss or damage" and "would be nearly impossible to recover" once distributed, according to The Center Square.

"In addition, the court finds that there is a strong public interest in temporarily halting the distribution of funds until this court can determine whether ordinance No. 71591 violates the Missouri Constitution or the St. Louis City Charter," Whyte wrote.

Attorneys for Tumlin and Hale told the outlet that the injunction represented "another good day for the taxpayers."

"We uphold constitutional norms or the city will fail," attorney W. Bevis Schock told the outlet in a statement.

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider on Sunday. Jones told Center Square that the city would follow the judge's order while continuing to explore legal options.