A Republican coalition of eleven states sued the Biden administration on Thursday over its latest attempt to cancel billions of dollars in student debt.
The multistate lawsuit, led by Kansas attorney general Kris Kobach, seeks to block President Joe Biden’s latest student-loan forgiveness plan for American borrowers enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment program. According to the lawsuit, this would abolish at least $156 billion in student-loan debt, higher than the program’s initial $138 billion estimate announced last month.
Kobach and ten other attorneys general filed the federal lawsuit to “stop a second attempt to avoid Congress and pass an illegal student debt forgiveness,” the 38-page lawsuit reads. The SAVE program was created after the Supreme Court last June struck down a similar forgiveness plan, one that would have eliminated up to $430 billion in student debt.
“Last time Defendants tried this, the Supreme Court said that this action was illegal. Nothing since then has changed,” the suit adds. President Biden, the Department of Education, and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona are listed as defendants.
Kansas was one of the six states that successfully challenged the Biden administration’s Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act last year. In Biden v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that Cardona does not have authority under the HEROES Act to cancel roughly $430 billion in student debt. The Court held that this move would have affected nearly all borrowers.
Kobach’s lawsuit argues the Department of Education still doesn’t have the authority to cancel billions in student debt, despite the scheme being under a different name. It also contends that the SAVE program is violating the Court’s ruling and that Congress is the only government body that can authorize student-loan forgiveness, which would require the spending of taxpayer money.
“Once again, the Biden administration has decided to steal from the poor and give to the rich. He is forcing people who did not go to college, or who worked their way through college, to pay for the loans of those who ran up exorbitant student debt. This coalition of Republican attorneys general will stand in the gap and stop Biden,” Kobach said in a statement.
“We intend to win again. The law simply does not allow Biden to do what he wants to do. Biden is trying to exercise the powers of a king rather than the powers of a President in a constitutional republic. We look forward to seeing the President’s attorneys in court.”
Joining Kobach are attorneys general Steve Marshall of Alabama, Treg Taylor of Alaska, Raúl Labrador of Idaho, Brenna Bird of Iowa, Elizabeth Murrill of Louisiana, Austin Knudsen of Montana, Michael Hilgers of Nebraska, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Ken Paxton of Texas, and Sean Reyes of Utah.
Also on Thursday, Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey announced his own plans to challenge the SAVE program in a separate lawsuit soon to be filed by Missouri and Arkansas.
“Between our two coalitions of states, we will get this matter in front of a judge even more quickly to deliver a win for the American people. The Supreme Court sided with Missouri on this matter the first time. I look forward to bringing home yet another win for the Constitution and the rule of law,” Bailey said in a statement.
In February, Biden announced his intention to cancel another $1.2 billion in student debt for nearly 153,000 borrowers and openly bragged about his defiance of the Supreme Court. “The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn’t stop me,” Biden boasted on February 21.
Since taking office, the president has approved the elimination of $138 billion worth of federal student loans for about 3.9 million student borrowers. Additionally, Biden announced just last week that $5.8 billion would be forgiven for nearly 78,000 workers in the public sector.
On Sunday, Biden again said he is “not backing down” from pushing the student-loan plan.
“From day one, I promised to fix broken student loan programs and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” he wrote on X. “I’m not backing down.”