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Trump-packed Supreme Court likely to deliver a blow on student loan forgiveness [1]
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Date: 2023-02-28
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar argued, along with the court’s liberal justices, that neither plaintiff could prove that. The states were arguing that the loan forgiveness program’s potentially harms one entity in Missouri, a student-loan servicing company called MOHELA that was created by the state. MOHELA declined to be a part of the states’ case, and Prelogar pointed out that MOHELA is independent of the state, chose not to sue, and how could Missouri—and then, by extension, all the other states—claim harm if MOHELA wasn’t.
“Usually, we don’t allow one person to step into another’s shoes and say, ‘I think that that person suffered harm,’ even if the harm is very great,” Justice Elena Kagan told the states’ lawyer. “So why isn’t MOHELA responsible for deciding whether to bring this suit?”
“MOHELA isn’t here,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “We don’t allow someone else to step in on behalf of someone else” in a federal lawsuit.
Even conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett had a problem with that. “Why didn’t the state make MOHELA come if MOHELA is an arm of the state?” she asked. Even should Barrett side with the liberals on this question, it’s unlikely they’d find a fifth vote to dismiss the states’ case on standing. As for the borrowers, the argument is tenuous—they were harmed by not being eligible for the forgiveness program, and might have benefited if the administration had chose a different route for the forgiveness program. Basically, they’re arguing if they can’t have loan forgiveness, no one else should either.
There was a lot of focus among the court’s conservatives on “fairness,” which really isn’t a legal argument at all and came across as just a bit silly. Chief Justice Roberts started that one off with a hypothetical situation: two high school graduates, one who chooses to go to college and takes out loans, and a second who decides to get a loan to start a lawn care business.
“Nobody is telling the person who was trying to set up the lawn service business that he doesn’t have to pay his loan,” Roberts said. Justice Samuel Alito piled on, asking, “Why is it fair? Why was it fair to the people who didn’t get arguably comparable relief?”
That brought a succinct explanation from a probably annoyed Justice Sonia Sotomayor, pointing out that they are in apples-and-oranges territory: “Different people got different benefits under different programs.” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also chimed in on the absurdity of this argument, asking Prelogar if that would open up essentially all government programs to a question of fairness.
Sotomayor was there to remind all the participants of the stakes. “There’s 50 million students who are—who will benefit from this. Who today will struggle. Many of them don’t have assets sufficient to bail them out after the pandemic. They don’t have friends or families or others who can help them make these payments,” she said.
“And what you’re saying is now we’re going to give judges the right to decide how much aid to give them instead of the person with the expertise and the experience, the secretary of education who’s been dealing with educational issues and the problems surrounding student loans,” she continued.
Those are not the people the majority of the Supreme Court cares about. The majority, possibly without Barrett this time, proved hostile to the administration. Because they expedited hearing the case, they might issue a decision on an expedited basis, before the usual May-June period for decisions from the spring session.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/28/2155520/-Supreme-Court-conservatives-prove-hostile-to-student-loan-forgiveness-in-hearing-on-Biden-program
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