More than 100 Republicans file amicus brief arguing student debt forgiveness is unconstitutional
The 128 House Republicans were led by Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC).
The Chairwoman told Campus Reform, 'The Biden administration is willing to use any means to enact its student loan bailout, even going so far as to exploit the 2003 HEROES Act.'
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear student loan forgiveness cases, over 100 Republican lawmakers filed an amicus brief arguing that the Biden administration’s plan is unconstitutional.
The 128 House Republicans were led by Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC).
The Chairwoman told Campus Reform, “The Biden administration is willing to use any means to enact its student loan bailout, even going so far as to exploit the 2003 HEROES Act.”
“Congress holds the power of the purse, but this administration is illegally circumventing congressional authority to enact a bailout that will drive inflation even higher as Americans struggle to support their families,” Foxx continued.
The brief comes after the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent its brief to the Supreme Court in January, which defended Biden’s plan by invoking the HEROES Act.
The Act, the DOJ argued in its brief, allows the executive branch to sidestep Congress for loan forgiveness.
[RELATED: ANALYSIS: Biden pleads SCOTUS to allow loan forgiveness, ignores Constitution]
The HEROES Act, however, is only available for times of war or other national emergencies, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
And while the DOJ argues that the Act applies to more than just members of the U.S. military, the Biden administration faces another challenge in defending loan forgiveness: the president announced that the state of emergency under the COVID-19 pandemic will end in May.
The use of the HEROES Act has caused some to speculate that Biden is just playing politics.
As Representative Duncan said in a Committee press release, the attempt to forgive student loan debt is “nothing more than a political maneuver”---a political maneuver that analysists such as Higher Education Fellow Nicholas Giordino says was done for votes.
“But, Biden did achieve his goal. He did get the votes of the younger people,” Gordano said on an episode of The Joe Piscopo Show in early December last year. “He knows it’s unconstitutional and that he couldn’t spend this money.”
Rep. Duncan argued in the press release that Biden’s plan “exploits the original intention of the HEROES Act of 2003, oversteps the authority of Congress, undermines the will of the American people, and would send the country further into a debt spiral.”
“The Court should invalidate the Secretary of Education’s sweeping student loan forgiveness program since it trespasses on Congressional authority and violates the separation of powers.”
The Republican Members argue that “[t]he power of the purse is one of Congress’s most potent checks against the executive branch, yet Petitioners’ overly broad reading of the HEROES Act risks encroaching on that power, as well as Congress’s Article I legislative authority, by arrogating to the Secretary of Education the authority to forgive a trillion dollars in federal debt that otherwise would be owed to the Treasury.”
A full list of members who signed the brief is provided on the Committee’s press release.
The DOJ, the Supreme Court, the White House, and the Department of Education have been contacted for comment, but have not yet responded. Campus Reform continues to track the work of the Committee on Education and The Workforce and the status of Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. This article will be updated accordingly.
Follow Jared Gould on Twitter.
