U.S. appeals court temporarily blocks Biden's student loan forgiveness plan

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked President Joe Biden's plan to cancel billions of dollars in college student loans, one day after a judge dismissed a Republican-led lawsuit by six states challenging the debt-forgiveness program.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the states' emergency petition to freeze the loan forgiveness plan until the court rules on their request for a longer-term injunction while Thursday's decision against the states is being appealed. The St. Louis-based appeals court also ordered an expedited briefing schedule on the matter.

U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey in St. Louis ruled on Thursday that while the six Republican-led states had raised "important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan," he threw out their lawsuit on grounds they lacked the necessary legal standing to pursue the case. Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina said Biden's plan skirted congressional authority and threatened the states' future tax revenues and money earned by state entities that invest in or service the student loans.

Their case is one of a number that conservative state attorneys general and legal groups have filed seeking to halt the debt forgiveness plan announced in August by Biden, a Democrat. Autrey ruled about an hour after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied without explanation an emergency request to put the debt relief plan on hold in a separate challenge brought by the Wisconsin-based Brown County Taxpayers Association.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-appeals-court-temporarily-blocks-bidens-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-2022-10-21/

---

Short article. Article being updated. Last version below...

ETA - this is Kavanaugh's jurisdiction for SCOTUS assignment.

Original article -

Oct 21 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked President Joe Biden's plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with six Republican-led states which had requested the student loan forgiveness plan be halted until court proceedings for an injunction are completed.

Link to tweet

Michael Stratford
@mstratford
·
Follow
NEWS: 8th Circuit temporarily halts Biden admin from "discharging any student loan debt under the Cancellation program" as it weights emergency request to block the debt relief reprogram.
Image
6:25 PM · Oct 21, 2022

[Mz Pip]

1. I'm confused

Didn’t Amy Coney Barrett give Biden a win on this?

[underpants]

2. Two different cases I think.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. She acted on a case from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals

This is another case coming through a different Circuit.

[iluvtennis]

4. + agree. Also, over 20 million put in their applications for the debt relief today (21 October)

[AllyCat]

16. I was one of them.

[FBaggins]

9. Not in any real sense

Oh... it was a "win" in the sense that if the court ruled the other way and actually took the case it would be a bad thing... but she/they didn't rule on the substance of anything (either that the plan was constitutional or even that nobody could have standing in challenging the plan). She/they just declined to hear the case (without comment). That could just mean that the issue wasn't "ripe" or the specific case didn't present the right question

[montanacowboy]

5. And how do all the red staters feel

about this that are applying? will they remember to vote? will they know who is fleecing them? JHC!

[OAITW r.2.0]

6. Any legal actions against farmer's debt relief?

A shit load more people will be positively impacted by student loan relief than farmers.

[Fiendish Thingy]

7. So who has standing to file a suit?

I guess that’s part of the pending appeal/injunction process?

So far, the courts have not found anyone to have standing on previous cases, IIRC.

[Igel]

10. That's the issue.

If you can't substantiate standing, there's no case.

Doesn't mean that the action's legal or Constitutional, it's just that under the rules of American jurisprudence nobody can file a claim.

The Biden admin has responded to at least a couple of suits by modifying the program to specifically rule out claims filed. In one case, the modification affected at least 100s of thousands and occurred the day that a suit was filed. Action-reaction, the modification was pretty obviously done in order to avoid judicial review. That's not the action of an administration confidence of its legal standing. It's not "bring it on" it's "duck and cover".

NY played this game, changing laws to avoid action against the gun legislation passed there over the years. SCOTUS said that the actions taken were specifically to do something un-Constitutional but deny standing to plaintiffs and avoid judicial review and granted standing to those who lacked official standing because of what NYS did to *avoid* review.

[FBaggins]

11. They haven't gotten that far yet

They haven't agreed that the states have established standing. This just gets them into next week by pushing pause on the plan while they argue that there should be a real pause (while they then argue the case).

It's a pretty low bar to cross. If there's any chance at all of them winning on appeal, then the fact that funds could start going out any day now harms the final result.

This one is actually an interesting twist on finding an entity with standing. It turns out that one of the largest federal student loan lenders (MOHELA) could claim to be harmed (because obviously they will lose interest income on the forgiven loans) and, get this, the MO in MOHELA is actually Missouri. So the question is less whether or not MOHELA has standing... and more whether Missouri can bring a claim on MOHELA's behalf.

It failed yesterday before a Bush judge. We'll know fairly quickly whether the 8th buys it

[3825-87867]

8. Reverse the 2017 2.7 trillion Corporate Tax Cut

and we won't have a problem.

[SunSeeker]

12. What is the irreparable harm to the states that warrants such an injunction?

We're just talking about expenditures of federal money.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Apparently some states tax that money

I think that was the main complaint in the Wisconsin case where receipt of the payment to apply against the loan would result in the plaintiff owing some "x" amount of taxes to the state. But the thing is, that only kicks in for those states IF you agree to accept that loan repayment, and that is why that one lost the case - they didn't HAVE to apply for it and could continue paying off the loan themselves.

There are probably some other convoluted types of loans that may or may not be covered under this program (outside of the "private" loans that obviously aren't covered).

[SunSeeker]

21. Any harm that can be made whole by repayment of money is not "irreparable." nt

[sl8]

14. Link:

This is the district courts decision. The positions of the States vary, but are summarized in the decision:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.moed.198213/gov.uscourts.moed.198213.44.0_2.pdf

Of course, Judge Autrey wasn't buying it. Looks like we'll find out if the circuit court buys it next week.

[SunSeeker]

22. Yep, all the states are just talking about money damages.

There is nothing irreparable about that. When you're paid back the money, you are no longer damaged. So what was the basis for the 8th Circuit's injunction?

[sl8]

23. The purpose of the stay is to give a few days time to recieve briefs and decide whether or not ...

The purpose of the stay is to give a them few days to receive briefs and then decide whether or not to issue the requested injunction.

[msfiddlestix]

19. My Theory, the harm to Red States is totally political, and these Judges know it.

The judges ruling to block Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness is about killing off any significant positive accomplishments which will tend to lean favorably to Dems at the ballot box.

I suspect this is their intention in a nutshell.

[SunSeeker]

20. Yup. nt

[Rhiannon12866]

15. Twitter reply:

Link to tweet

[Historic NY]

17. These are the Federal loans

not state what standing do they have?

[GB_RN]

18. They Claim It Will Hurt State Pension Plans...

But state loans aren't affected, thus pension plans aren't affected, nor are state tax payers or employees. It's a bogus argument. These clowns have no standing, but we all know that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals is very friendly towards the Reich Wing. Hence this stay. I wouldn't be surprised if the goon squad gets a friendly ruling that requires such legal and mental gymnastics that it makes a contortionist look like an amateur.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

24. Statement from Biden administration

Link to tweet

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

25. White House fires back in court against block on student loan debt forgiveness

The Biden administration on Monday rebuked a group of six states hoping to undo its plans to forgive student loan debt for millions of Americans.

It's the latest salvo in the ongoing legal bickering between conservative groups trying to derail the debt relief plan and the administration's hope of erasing millions of borrowers' debt – in keeping with a campaign promise – before the year's end.

The federal government said the states had failed to prove they would be injured by the administrations' debt relief initiative. It also said any limitation the court handed down should be restricted to the states bringing the challenge, where about 2.8 million people are eligible for debt forgiveness.

-snip-

"Plaintiffs will suffer no irreparable injury from the provision of much-needed relief to millions of Americans, but the public interest would be greatly harmed by its denial," the Biden administration said in its court filing. "If the Court disagrees, any injunction should be narrowly tailored to the plaintiff States."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/white-house-fires-back-in-court-against-block-on-student-loan-debt-forgiveness/ar-AA13kwwW