A federal court on Friday night temporarily blocked President Joe Biden's education loan forgiveness program, issuing a stay that will give judges time for you to review legal challenges towards the scheme.
A day earlier, federal district Judge Henry Autrey had rejected challenging brought by a group of Republican attorneys general from six states. Even though the case raised \”important and significant challenges\” to Biden's student debt settlement plan, Autrey ultimately ruled the state governments lacked standing-that is, the right to bring an instance based on a demonstration of harm and potential remedy.
That decision was immediately appealed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, which issued the administrative remain on Friday night. Within the order, the court told the Biden administration to take no further action on the debt settlement plan until full consideration of the situation could occur.
In an argument, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the ruling didn't prevent student loan borrowers from signing up to have their debts forgiven.
\”It can also be worth noting that the order does not reverse the trial court's dismissal from the case, or suggest that the case has merit. It merely prevents debt from being discharged until the court makes a decision,\” she said. \”We will continue to move full speed ahead within our preparations in compliance with this order.\”
Establishing standing is the first major hurdle in almost any legal challenge towards the student debt plan-and it's shown to be a hard someone to clear. A case filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a libertarian law practice, was similarly dismissed with a federal judge for lacking standing last month. On Friday, the U.S. Top court rejected without explanation a challenge brought by a Wisconsin-based taxpayer advocacy group.
Part from the problem is the student debt relief plan seems to be a moving target-the administration has adjusted the rules and eligibility for the program several times since it was announced in August. Among those changes, seemingly in response to the PLF lawsuit, eliminated automatic approval of student debt forgiveness (which means students who may be financially harmed by having their debt removed no more have standing to sue as they possibly can merely opt out).
But the Biden student loan forgiveness scheme is going to cost taxpayers approximately $400 billion in order to transfer a staggering quantity of wealth to people who generally already are very well off. The whole thing is based on a legally dubious reading of the post-9/11 law that allowed the president to forgive student loans for first responders-and rest on Biden's pandemic emergency powers, despite his own admission that the pandemic is over. Surely, someone should have standing to file a lawsuit over this.
So when a federal judge says there are \”important and significant\” issues for the courts to evaluate here, that's quite an understatement. Friday night's order from the Eighth Circuit should be just the initial step towards an intensive legal review of this expensive, unnecessary, and legally fraught proposal.
