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| Illustration: Ryan Trefes |
Justices set arguments for winter, putting matter on track to be decided in current court session
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to decide whether the Biden administration can cancel student-loan debt for millions of Americans, putting the matter on a fast-track timeline that should produce a final ruling by the end of June.
The court, in an unsigned order, didn’t act on the administration’s emergency request that it be allowed to move forward with the debt relief immediately. But the justices set arguments on the matter for this winter, agreeing to the White House’s alternative request that the court take up the case to decide whether the debt forgiveness is a lawful exercise of presidential power.
The move speeds up the legal process by allowing the administration to obtain a final ruling from the Supreme Court without first having to wait for additional proceedings in lower courts that could have dragged out the litigation for another year or longer.
“The administration is taking its case to the Supreme Court,” White House chief of staff Ron Klain wrote on Twitter following the order.
Several marquee initiatives of the Biden administration have met their end at the Supreme Court. The justices, typically breaking along conservative-liberal lines, have stymied White House plans to extend Covid-19 measures including an eviction moratorium and a vaccinate-or-test mandate for large employers, and blocked efforts to overhaul Trump-era immigration and environmental policies. President Biden’s effort to forgive educational debt might similarly face headwinds from a conservative majority skeptical of powers his administration has asserted without clear approval from Congress.
The lawsuit before the Supreme Court was brought by Republican officials in six states who claimed that the program was an unlawful exercise of presidential authority that would affect state revenues and tax receipts. --->READ MORE HERE
The Supreme Court announced Thursday it will hear arguments by six Republican-led states against President Biden’s $400 billion student loan forgiveness program in February of next year — the latest high court showdown over one of the president’s policies.
The attorneys general of Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina have argued that Biden was incorrect to use the COVID-19 pandemic as justification to launch the program in August of this year — and overstepped the limits of his power while doing so.
The justices will allow the debt program to remain blocked by lower courts before they hear arguments on the program.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis, put a preliminary injunction on the administration’s plan last month while it considered the states’ appeal of a lower court’s order in October to allow the program to move forward because the states lacked standing in the case.
The states argued that the debt cancellation plan would do financial harm to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, an organization that services loans held by the federal government to students across the country.
The court upheld the states’ standing, ruling that the loan writeoff “will prevent or delay Missouri from funding higher education at its public colleges and universities.” --->READ MORE HERE
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