On the Case of Wisconsin Taxpayers Association Against the Biden-Brown Coney Barrettt Act of a Supreme Court Justice
Justice Amy ConeyBarrett, who is a member of the Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal by the Wisconsin taxpayers group.
The appeal at issue was considered an uphill battle because lower courts had ruled that the group, the Brown County Taxpayers Association, did not have the legal right or “standing” to bring the challenge. Taxpayers do not have a general right to take on the government over how it uses taxpayer funds.
She has jurisdiction over the lower court, which ruled in the case, so she acted alone. She did not refer the matter to the full court. Her denial appeared as a single sentence on the court’s docket.
The judge in the federal district court ruled that the six Republican states did not have the right to bring the lawsuit.
The states are expected to immediately appeal. It is likely to be heard by a panel of conservative judges at the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Biden administration is facing lawsuits from conservative groups as well as the Arizona Attorney General.
Dual setbacks to Biden’s Student Debt Relief Program: One Federal District Court in Washington and one by six Republican-led states
Some borrowers who earned less than $100,000 in either 2020 or 2021, as well as married couples and heads of households who made less than $250,000 a year, will have their student loan debt forgiven.
A person with at least one federal grant can get up to $20,000 of debt forgiveness if they also enroll in college.
WASHINGTON — Attempts to block President Biden’s student debt relief programs were dealt dual setbacks on Thursday, as a federal judge in Missouri and Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected challenges to the sweeping measure, one that could cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars.
Judge Henry E. Autrey of the Federal District Court in St. Louis dismissed the more prominent of the two lawsuits, one brought by six Republican-led states. The suit accused Mr. Biden of overstepping his authority under a 2003 federal law that allows the education secretary to modify financial assistance programs for students “in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.”
The plan cancels $10,000 in debt for those earning less than $125,000 per year, or $250,000 per household, and $20,000 for those who received Pell grants for low-income families. The Congressional Budget Office stated last month that the plan had a price tag of $400 billion, and a few days later the Education Department estimated it would cost $379 billion over the course of the program.
Judge Autrey, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, did not rule on the larger issue in the lawsuit, which was brought by Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina. He said that the states didn’t suffer injuries like those that allowed them to be sued.
The one who received the emergency application was Amy Coney Barrett, a justice of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The other justices may have agreed with her decision.
Within hours of the Supreme Court action, another closely watched challenge to the program, this one brought by six GOP led states, was tossed out by a federal district court in Missouri.
The emergency request to the Supreme Court was brought by the Brown County Taxpayers Association, a Wisconsin organization made up of around 100 taxpaying individuals and business owners that advocates for conservative economic policy.
Why the Department of Education can’t forgive the debtors? An application from the healthcare.gov website on the first weekend of its open
The organization believes that the U.S. Department of Education is taking action that is outside of its authority. The Department of Education is endowed with the power to manage loan programs, but can’t forgive them on their own. This power, they say, rests with Congress.
The plan has been challenged by several other conservative organizations. Those lawsuits are percolating in various lower courts, though they may face similar difficulty showing a specific harm to stay alive.
The first weekend of the website’s open, 22 million people submitted applications, and eight million of them over the weekend, a startling contrast to the six people who successfully negotiated the launch of the healthcare.gov website on the day of its launch two years ago. As professors of public policy, we have shared our research on how administrative burdens make vital public services harder to access with the Biden administration, and we spoke with Department of Education officials about how many people might participate in the program (though we played no role in helping design this process or the application itself). It was astounding to see that it is so easy to apply for debt relief.
The streamlined application shows there is a way to deliver public services when the government focuses on the public. The form can be completed in just a couple of minutes. It works on both a computer and a cellphone, and is available in both Spanish and English. The three simple pages are a welcome page, a form and a confirmation page. Beneficiaries do not need to create an account with a password in order to benefit from it. Applicants need five pieces of information: name, social security number, date of birth, phone number and email address. That is it.
How does the Supreme Court Use “Stealthy” Rules to Undermine the Republic? A Comment on Pittman’s Student Loan Debt Relief Case
Steve Vladeck is a CNN legal analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. He is the author of a book about how the Supreme Court uses “stealthy” rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
The program’s sheer economic size made it difficult for Congress to grant clear authorization compared with the 2003 statute that the executive branch is relying on. Invoking the Supreme Court’s new and deeply contested “major questions doctrine,” Pittman’s ruling would, if left intact, make it impossible for the program to be rescued without Congress stepping in.
After analyzing the case further, he realized that Brown and Taylor were not given an opportunity to argue for expansion of the eligibility criteria because the program was exempt from the notice-and-comment rulemaking requirement. They stood based on an injury that was held by Pittman.
In order to have a case standing, there are three things: the injury is likely to be the result of the defendants’ actions, and the courts can give at least some compensation for their injuries.
This is a technical doctrine and it is also important. As Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a 2007 opinion, “No principle is more fundamental to the judiciary’s proper role in our system of government.”
Basically, the idea is that it’s not the federal courts’ job to answer hypothetical questions or resolve policy disputes. Only if a party can show how they’ve been harmed by the challenged policy in a manner that is concrete and particularized – real and discrete – will they (usually) be allowed to challenge it.
It is a matter to be decided through the political process if the government is acting in a way that doesn’t affect the people who are suing it. The function of the Congress and the Chief Executive is to fulfill the public interest in the Constitution and laws, according to Antonin Scalia.
In that respect, Pittman’s ruling, and the public discourse surrounding the student loan debt relief program more generally, is also a helpful reminder that not every policy dispute should lead to litigation – and that it’s not the job of the courts to resolve every contentious issue in American politics.
If Justice Alito was correct, there should be no problem with the principle that courts can only decide cases that present actual, justiciable controversies between adverse parties. Otherwise, the courts aren’t acting as courts; they’re just taking sides in policy debates that no one elected them to resolve.