The student loan forgiveness plan put in motion by President Joe Biden recently survived two legal fights.
First, a challenge by six-Republican led states was dismissed by a federal judge in Missouri for lack of standing, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Then, Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett declined to halt the policy when taxpayers asked the Supreme Court to intervene, Politico reports.
The challenge at the Supreme Court came from a taxpayer group out of Wisconsin, The Brown County Taxpayers Association.
Politico continued:
Barrett on Thursday swiftly rejected a Wisconsin conservative group’s emergency request to stop the policy without comment or any indication she referred the matter to the full court.
Barrett, a Donald Trump appointee, had received the request a day earlier because she oversees emergency matters from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. It was the first time a legal challenge to Biden’s relief plan had reached the high court.
The Brown County Taxpayers Association had argued that it should be able to challenge the Biden administration’s debt relief program on behalf of the taxpayers who it says will be dealt a “staggering” blow by the policy. The lawsuit was brought by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.
Six-Republican led states lost the battle in Missouri with the Republican appointed judge ruling they lacked standing to fight the forgiveness program.
The judge in Missouri did not rule on the legality of the program noting he was handcuffed by the standing issue:
Thursday’s ruling, by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey of St. Louis, said GOP officials representing six states didn’t have standing to challenge the loan forgiveness because they couldn’t show they had been harmed by the Biden program.
The judge denied the states’ request for a preliminary injunction to stop the program from moving forward, a move that gives the Biden administration a green light—for now—to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal student loans.
Judge Autrey, an appointee of President George W. Bush, didn’t rule on whether the loan-forgiveness program was lawful. Because the states lacked standing, the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case, he said.
“While plaintiffs present important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan, the current plaintiffs are unable to proceed,” the judge wrote.
Biden’s program will relieve student loan borrowers of $10,000 of debt and up to $20,000 if they are Pell grant recipients.
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