"The Federal Trade Commission, like other federal agencies, posted a simple notice on its website at the start of fiscal 2026: "The FTC is closed as of midnight Wednesday, October 1, 2025, due to the lapse in government funding." What the notice did not say was that the announcement came during the year of a grim anniversary for the FTC: Forty-five years ago, it became the first government agency ever to shut down due to a lack of appropriations."
"Before 1980, shutdowns simply never happened. The operating assumption in government was that Congress would never have intended for agency operations to grind to a halt because of its failure to resolve funding disputes in a timely fashion. Such scenarios had in fact unfolded on several occasions in history, and all were expeditiously resolved. When agencies technically ran out of money, they simply continued normal operations until lawmakers provided new funds."
"Then, on April 25, 1980, along came then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti with a landmark opinion: Continuing to operate an agency without official appropriations, he ruled in response to a lawmaker's query, constituted a violation of an obscure law called the 1884 Antideficiency Act. It was all downhill from there. Just five days later, the Civiletti opinion got its first test, when the FTC ran out of funds."
The Federal Trade Commission posted a notice at the start of fiscal 2026 stating the agency was closed because of a lapse in government funding. The 2025 closure fell on the 45th anniversary of the FTC becoming the first government agency to shut down for lack of appropriations in 1980. Before 1980, agencies commonly continued operating past funding lapses while Congress resolved appropriations. On April 25, 1980, Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti ruled that operating without appropriations violated the 1884 Antideficiency Act, and five days later the FTC experienced the first shutdown under that interpretation.
Read at Nextgov.com
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