WASHINGTON — One of President Biden’s most ambitious proposals — a $400 billion program to clear student loan debt for 40 million Americans — could become the latest victim of a legal battle with Trump. Supreme Court for presidential powers.
conservative judge on the court third signal that they are deeply skeptical that Mr. Biden can afford to write off such a huge student debt. In oral arguments, several judges said they believe a program that costs too much and affects so many people should be more clearly passed by Congress.
This is not the first time the court has found Mr Biden to have exceeded his authority, but the case is likely to limit the ambitions of Mr Biden as well as newly empowered Republicans in the House have claimed. will block any of his moves in Congress.
During Mr. Biden’s first two years in office, courts blocked him from enacting key parts of his agenda, including sweeping measures to tackle climate change, demands on vaccines at major companies and a ban on evictions during the pandemic.
In each case, the court’s conservative majority said the president needed explicit congressional approval to pursue such grand policies.
The court’s decision on whether to block the student loan program, which is likely to come in the summer, will have a major impact on millions of borrowers who are already struggling to repay their loans.
And it would set additional legal precedents, potentially defining new limits to presidential powers.
The ruling could have other broad political implications, forcing Mr Biden and his allies to reframe their efforts to appeal to one of the most important pre-war Democratic constituencies. 2024 election campaign: young people.
Instead, the president may face voters with a very different message: that despite his best efforts, student debt relief has been thwarted by Republicans, who who thwarted his policy in the Supreme Court.
Asked on Wednesday if he believes the court will rule in the administration’s favor, Biden said: “I believe we’re on the side of the law. I am not confident in the outcome of this decision.”
The White House does not concede defeat. In court on Tuesday, lawyers for the Biden administration argued that Congress had given the education secretary the power to forgive student debt.
But Mr Biden’s team has shown a willingness to use the issue for its own political gain, even if the best they can do is blame Republicans for thwarting the plan.
Miguel A. Cardona, the education minister, on Tuesday sent an email to tens of millions of Americans who signed up for relief.
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“While opponents of this program will deny relief to tens of millions of working- and middle-class Americans,” Cardona wrote in the email, “we are fighting to bail out borrowers in need. support as they bounce back from the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.”
If the courts block the program, the administration could continue to use the email list to contact millions of potential voters about why they aren’t getting the help Biden and his team promised.
Max Lubin, chief executive officer of Rise, a group that advocates for student debt forgiveness, said the president has a good argument to make if Republicans succeed in blocking his debt forgiveness program.
He said the White House could send a message that “you have an alternative in us and we will support you.”
Mr. Lubin added: “I think it’s a really powerful message to send to 25-year-olds.”
Last summer, when he announced his plan, Mr. Biden said student loan forgiveness was important because “an entire generation is currently saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for effort, at least, get a college degree.”
But without a large majority in Congress to pass such Democratic priorities, the president has repeatedly turned to executive action, drawing legal objections from his Republican opponents.
Those objections were taken to the Supreme Court, whose membership now includes six conservative and three liberal justices. That left the president in a losing position on a number of key occasions.
The Biden administration’s strained relationship with the Supreme Court stems from a case where judges ruled against President Donald J. Trump, such as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said during Tuesday’s debates.
In that 2020 case, it was libertarians who urged the Supreme Court to stop Mr. Trump from abruptly ending an Obama-era program from 2012 that protected some 700,000 young immigrants from being arrested. immediate deportation.
“This incident reminds me of an incident we had a few years ago under a different administration where that administration tried to take action on its own to cancel the Dreamers program and we blocked that attempt. ,” he say. “And I just wonder that, given the circumstances of the case and with our historical interest in the separation of powers, you would at least realize that this is a case that presents extreme problems. serious, important about the role of the National Assembly?”
That case was decided by a 5 to 4 vote, with the chief justice joining the then four-member liberal wing to form the majority. Dissenting, Justice Clarence Thomas predicts that subsequent administrations will face similar regulatory hurdles.
“It has given the green light,” he wrote of the court, “for future political battles to take place in this court instead of where they legally belong – the political branches.”
Mr. Biden’s struggles over the past two years — including in this week’s student loan case — show that Justice Thomas was right in his prediction. After dismissing Mr. Trump’s executive power in 2020, the court is now doing the same for Mr. Biden.
The administration’s track record has been mixed.
In December, the judges said that Title 42, a pandemic-era health measure that restricts entry at the southern border, must temporarily stay in place. However, in June, the court ruled that the government can be canceled a Trump-era immigration program that forced some asylum seekers to the southwestern border to await approval in Mexico.
And, in a modest victory for Mr. Biden, the court allows a more limited mission require healthcare workers at federally funded facilities to vaccinate.
In the student loan case on Tuesday, a majority of the judges seemed willing to put another limit on how far Mr Biden can go in dealing with the ripples of the pandemic. At issue is Mr. Biden’s use of a law designed to allow for student loans to be waived during national emergencies.
But court observers said the president could still win the case on technical grounds if the judges decide that the plaintiffs in the case – the Republican state attorney general and two student loan borrowers – not eligible to sue.
On Wednesday, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, declined to offer a backup plan should the administration lose.
“We have no other plans,” she told reporters. “This is our plan. This is it. We believe we have legal authority. That’s why we took the case to the highest court in the country, the Supreme Court. And we will continue to fight.”
