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By Aliss Higham
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Two Barack Obama-appointed judges have partially blocked some of Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plans.
Federal judges in Kansas and Missouri on Monday halted parts of the Biden-Harris administration Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan that provides a faster path to student loan forgiveness and lower monthly repayments for borrowers. The program has faced two separate legal challenges in Republican-led states, which argue that the president overstepped his authority in implementing his debt relief plans by not acquiring input from Congress.
In Kansas, U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree, who was nominated by Obama and confirmed in May 2014, ruled in a lawsuit filed by the state attorney general that the Department of Education (DoE) could not implement parts of the program designed to assist students with larger loans by lowering their monthly payments and reducing their repayment period from 25 years to 20 years.
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He permitted parts of the program that allow students who borrowed less than $12,000 to have their remaining loans forgiven after making repayments for 10 years instead of the usual 25 years.
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Crabtree's decision comes just weeks after he ruled that eight of the 11 states involved in the lawsuit failed to adequately show how they would be harmed by the implementation of the SAVE plan. He found that only Alaska, Texas and South Carolina made a strong enough case for part of the SAVE plan potentially harming state tax revenue, dismissing arguments made by Kansas, Idaho, Alabama, Louisiana, Montana, Utah, Nebraska and Idaho.
When Newsweek contacted the office of Judge Crabtree, a representative said that "the Judicial Code of Conduct prohibits him from commenting about active cases."
On Monday, U.S. District Judge John Ross of Missouri ruled that the DoE could not forgive loan balances going forward, but said the federal department could lower monthly payments. He said the DoE "lacks the requisite congressional authority to forgive loans under the SAVE plan."
Ross' ruling relates to a lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Andrew Bailey on behalf of Missouri as well as six others: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma. Ross was nominated by Obama in 2010 and confirmed in 2011.
The nationwide preliminary injunctions mean that federal student debt for borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan cannot be cancelled while litigation continues. Debt relief that has already been issued is not affected.
"Only Congress has the power of the purse, not the President," Bailey said. "Today's ruling was a huge win for the rule of law, and for every American who Joe Biden was about to force to pay off someone else's debt."
"Kansas' victory today is a victory for the entire country," Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said. "As the court correctly held, whether to forgive billions of dollars of student debt is a major question that only Congress can answer. Biden's administration is attempting to usurp Congress' authority."
"This is not only unconstitutional, it's unfair," he added. "Blue collar Kansas workers who didn't go to college shouldn't have to pay off the student loans of New Yorkers with gender studies degrees."
In a statement seen by Newsweek, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration is fighting to "fix a broken student loan system and make sure borrowers aren't saddled with unmanageable student loan debt."
"We strongly disagree with today's rulings on our SAVE Plan and the Department of Justice will continue to vigorously defend the SAVE Plan," she said. "President Biden and his administration will continue to build off of the progress made delivering debt cancellation to over 4.75 million Americans through various actions, and we will never stop fighting for students and borrowers - no matter how many roadblocks Republican elected officials and special interests put in our way."
Update 6/26/24, 4:10 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from a representative from the office of Judge Crabtree.
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