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By Katie Bernard, Daniel Desrochers and Kacen Bayless
The Kansas City Star
(The Kansas City Star) Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a lawsuit Thursday aimed at blocking President Joe Biden’s latest attempt at forgiving billions in student loan debt for Americans. bulletin news
Kobach is leading a coalition of 11 Republican attorneys general to challenge the plan, which the Biden administration has introduced through a series of programs over the last few months following a U.S. Supreme Court that struck down an earlier loan forgiveness plan that offered relief to a broader swath of borrowers.
“President Biden’s new student loan forgiveness plan is slightly smaller than the old one, at least for now. But it’s just as illegal,” Kobach said in a press conference announcing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court alleges the Biden administration is overstepping its authority in proposing rules to wipe out debt for some Americans without express permission from Congress. If Biden is able to cancel this much debt through executive action, the lawsuit argues, he would be able to cancel all debt this way.
“As the Defendants scrape ever deeper into the barrel for legal pretexts to abolish student debts, the illegality of those artifices becomes more obvious,” the lawsuit says. “The authority that Defendants claim now lacks any substantive limits and amounts to claiming that they can abolish all student debt at any time by rulemaking alone.”
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A U.S. Department of Education spokesperson said in a statement the department did not comment on pending litigation but added that the federal agency has the authority to define the terms of income-driven repayment plans.
“From day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has been fighting to fix a broken student loan system, and part of that is creating the most affordable student loan repayment plan ever that is lowering monthly payments, protecting millions of borrowers from runaway interest and getting borrowers closer to debt forgiveness faster,” the statement said.
“The Biden-Harris Administration won’t stop fighting to provide support and relief to borrowers across the country – no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us.”
The Biden administration’s new plan to relieve student loan debt comes after Missouri played a central role in the Supreme Court’s decision to prevent the Biden administration from forgiving up to $30,000 in student loan debt for some Americans.
The earlier plan would have relieved 40 million Americans of all or some of their student loan debt, fulfilling a Biden campaign promise. The Biden administration’s SAVE Plan only applies to 153,000 borrowers who took out fewer than $12,000 in student loans and have been repaying it for more than a decade.
But the Supreme Court’s ruling hinged on a Missouri-created student loan agency, called MOHELA. The attorneys argued that the program, which helps Missouri support scholarships, would be harmed if Biden’s larger student loan plan went through. Kansas does not have its own student loan agency.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, said in a statement Thursday that Missouri would be filing a separate lawsuit to challenge the plan in the coming days.
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“Between our two coalitions of states, we will get this matter in front of a judge even more quickly to deliver a win for the American people,” he said. “The Supreme Court sided with Missouri on this matter the first time. I look forward to bringing home yet another win for the Constitution and the rule of law.”
Biden’s plan earned broad support from Democrats across the country who argued people are overburdened by student loan debt.
According to the administration more than 1,200 Kansans are eligible for $9.9 million in relief under one of the programs, which cancels debt for people who borrowed less than $12,000. More than 2,700 Missourians would be eligible for $22.4 million in relief.
“President Biden’s student debt cancellation programs are one of the many ways in which his administration is working to lower costs for middle-class families, and whether you are a public servant or on an income-driven repayment plan, I strongly encourage Missourians with student loans to learn more about these programs and see if they’re eligible for relief,” U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, a Democrat, said at the time.
But Republicans have argued it is unfair to Americans who paid their way through school or have already paid off their loans.
“As a parent scraping to set aside money for my own girls to go to college and watching them work their way through college or work to save money for college, I see this unfairness directly,” Kobach said Thursday. “And I think most Americans do as well, regardless of party.”
©2024 The Kansas City Star. Visit kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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