The US supreme court’s decision to strike down Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan late last week “usurped the authority of Congress”, Democratic House representative Ro Khanna said on Sunday.
Khanna, of California, argued that if anyone thought Biden was unduly empowered by the legislation which the president used to issue the debt relief program, “then the solution is Congress can repeal the … act”.
Chief justice John Roberts and his colleagues on the supreme court “shouldn’t be overturning the will of Congress just because they think Congress gave too much power to the president,” Khanna said on Sunday on ABC’s This Week.
The show’s host, Jonathan Karl, pushed back on Khanna’s stance. Karl played a clip in which former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi – Khanna’s fellow California Democrat – asserted that a president could delay debt repayment but not entirely, single-handedly forgive it.
In fact, Karl said, the supreme court quoted Pelosi’s words in the decision that doomed the student debt relief program put forth by Biden.
Khanna countered by saying that, after Pelosi’s remarks, the Biden administration solicited a legal analysis of the 2003 Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (Heroes) Act on which the president based his debt forgiveness program.
After that analysis, Biden’s staff concluded that the Heroes Act – which enables the government to provide relief to student borrowers amid a national emergency – gave the president authority to cancel or amend the loans in question, Khanna said.
The progressive congressman added that he could understand arguments that the Heroes Act – which was passed about two years after the September 11 terrorist attacks – “was way too broad”. But that argument should be advanced in Congress – “it is not for unelected justices to override” federal lawmakers who were chosen by voters, Khanna said.
“That’s what this court is doing,” Khanna continued. “It’s very dangerous. They are basically reinterpreting congressional statute to fit their ideological preconceptions.”
Khanna’s remarks came days after he spoke to the Guardian about his wish for an extension to an October deadline to resume payments for 40 million students affected by the debt forgiveness program’s defeat.
During that interview, he also said the court’s decision to invalidate Biden’s debt forgiveness program proved the institution was “regressive” and in need of reform. Additionally, he pledged to accelerate efforts to pass a bill which would establish term limits for supreme court justices, who currently enjoy lifetime appointments.
Three far-right justices on the supreme court – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – were appointed during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Last week, the conservative supermajority which Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett help form also struck down affirmative action in college admission as well as a Colorado law that compelled entities to afford same-sex couples equal treatment, all about a year after the court eliminated the federal abortion rights established by the landmark Roe v Wade ruling in 1973.
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A poll released on Sunday by This Week showed that 52% of Americans believed that supreme court justices ruled “mainly on the basis of their partisan political view rather than on the basis of the law”. That marked a significant increase from January 2022, when only 38% felt that way.
However, the poll did show that a majority – 52% – of Americans approved of the decision ending affirmative action in colleges.
Khanna said in the short term he would support Biden’s recently announced efforts to implement a new student debt relief plan through the Higher Education Act. That law was unaffected by the supreme court’s ruling involving the Heroes Act.
Khanna also called on the president to block student loan interest from accruing beginning in the fall as well.
“You have all of these students who have relied on a promise that they are going to have their student loans forgiven,” Khanna said on This Week. “This is a real hardship.”
Khanna made clear that past personal experience partly explained his efforts.
“I had to take out $150,000 of student loans,” Khanna said. “I’m fortunate now and been able to pay them off.”
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
