substitute source of support.
Under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act (PRA), the AFDC program was canceled and replaced with the TANF program. According to Nice & Trubek, "Congress eliminated the federal statutory entitlement requiring states to provide AFDC benefits to all eligible individuals, and the procedural entitlement requiring states to grant disgruntled beneficiaries an opportunity for a fair hearing before a state agency." The Carmi welfare department can, therefore, be expected to argue that Gaines under PRA and applicable state welfare law no longer has any property subject to the Due Process Clause because a former entitlement has been replaced with an entirely discretionary TANF benefit.
However, neither the constitutionality of PRA nor of the TANF program has yet been decided. It is unclear whether Congress has the power to eliminate the requirement that state agencies observe minimal standards of procedural due process. Moreover, in PRA, Nice & Trubek said
Congress required that the states set forth in their TANF Family Assistance Plan 'objective criteria for the delivery of benefits and the determination of eligibility and for fair and equitable treatment, including an explanation of how the State will provide opportunities for recipients who have been adversely affected to be heard in a State administrative or appeal process.
It is unclear from the question whether the State has gotten around to complying with this provision. If not, Gaines should argue that existing due process constraints should apply, including reasonable notice of the hearing. Supreme Court precedents are ambiguous. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 577 (1972), held that a benefit constitutes a property right only if it is so defined in the relevant statute, but Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532 (1985), suggested that a state legislature cannot foreclose or limit the exis...