A federal judge in North Texas ruled on Thursday that President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program is “unlawful,” the latest challenge to the policy that has seen several attacks from conservative groups.
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman said in court files that he declared the loan forgiveness plan unlawful because Biden did not follow federal procedures to allow for public comment prior to the policy’s announcement.
In October, the Job Creators Network Foundation filed the lawsuit in the North Texas court on behalf of two borrowers who don’t qualify for all of the program’s benefits. Those borrowers disagreed with the program’s eligibility criteria and the lawsuit alleged that they could not voice their disagreement.
The latest attack on Biden’s loan forgiveness programs comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit temporarily halted the program last month in response to a lawsuit from six GOP-led states. The Texas lawsuit joins a growing number of legal challenges to the loan forgiveness plan that Biden announced in August. Borrowers started applying for the program in October.
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The Texas lawsuit alleges that Biden’s program violated the Administrative Procedure Act by not providing a public comment period. The lawsuit also argues the Secretary of Education does not have the authority to implement the program.
Alexander Taylor, one of the plaintiffs, is not eligible for $20,000 in forgiveness because he did not receive a Pell Grant, which is only available to low-income students, and therefore will only be entitled to $10,000 off his student loans.
The other plaintiff, Myra Brown, has privately held loans that are no longer covered by Biden’s plan. Earlier in the program’s existence, commercially held loans like Brown’s could be consolidated into Direct Loans, which meet the eligibility requirements of Biden’s program, but the Education Department changed this policy after fielding multiple lawsuits from conservative states.
In response to the lawsuit, the Justice Department argued last month that Biden’s plan doesn’t require notice and comment.
I guess we should be thankful that this is based on a colorable legal claim, one that at least theoretically could be addressed in a subsequent order if it came to that, and not on some bullshit Constitutional theory invented last week by a drone in a Federalist Society lab. It’s still the case that every two-bit Trump-appointed or adjacent district judge thinks they have a national veto on anything the President does, and that’s not how this is supposed to work. It really would be nice if we could restore a little balance here.