Month: March 2023

Conservative Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical about the legality of President Joe Biden’s student loan debt relief plan — announced by Biden in August and originally scheduled to take effect last fall. The program would allow eligible borrowers to cancel up to $20,000 in debt, but has been blocked since the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary hold in October. Questions remain as to whether the challengers have legal standing to sue, while there are also doubts it will ever go into effect.

Biden’s program would cancel up to $10,000 in debt for borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year (or couples who file taxes jointly and earn less than $250,000 annually). Pell Grant recipients, who are the majority of borrowers, would be eligible for an additional $10,000 in debt relief. The overall program could help more than 40 million borrowers, the administration has said.

The high court heard arguments in two cases on Tuesday, one brought by six states, and the other brought by two people, Myra Brown and Alexander Taylor, who hold student loan debt. The challengers argue that the administration’s proposal violates the Constitution and federal law, partly because it circumvents Congress, which they said has the sole power to create laws related to student loan forgiveness.

Of the six conservative justices, only Justice Amy Coney Barrett repeatedly probed whether challengers had legal standing. Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, two justices the Biden administration may have been targeting as potential votes against standing, focused their questions on the major questions doctrine. That could indicate they believe the challengers have standing. The law in question, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, or HEROES Act, states that the government can provide relief to recipients of student loans when there is a “national emergency,” allowing the government to take action to ensure people are not in “a worse position financially” as a result of the emergency. The challengers say the language in the HEROES Act is not specific enough to authorize a proposal as broad as Biden’s plan.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the cases by the end of June.

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President Biden will nominate the current deputy, Julie Su, as his next labor secretary, replacing the departing incumbent, former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. Walsh announced his intention to leave the administration earlier this month to lead the National Hockey League Players’ Association. Su will serve as the acting secretary until the Senate acts on her nomination.

Su is a former California official civil rights attorney and former head of California’s labor department, and was central to negotiations between labor and freight rail companies last year, working to avert a strike. If confirmed by the Senate, Su would also be the first Asian-American in the Biden administration to serve in the Cabinet at the secretary level.

President Biden said in a statement that Su is a “champion for workers… Julie is a tested and experienced leader, who will continue to build a stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive economy that provides Americans a fair return for their work and an equal chance to get ahead. She helped avert a national rail shutdown, improved access to good jobs free from discrimination through my Good Jobs Initiative, and is ensuring that the jobs we create in critical sectors like semiconductor manufacturing, broadband and healthcare are good-paying, stable and accessible jobs for all.”

Biden had been under pressure from the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and other Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) advocates to select Su to head the department. This administration was the first in more than two decades to not have a Cabinet secretary of AAPI descent. If confirmed, Su would also expand the majority of women serving in the president’s Cabinet.

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