Missouri AG Bailey files lawsuit to block Biden’s latest student loan forgiveness plan

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to block President Joe Biden’s latest attempt to provide student loan debt relief for Americans.

Bailey, a Republican, is leading the lawsuit, which was filed alongside six other Republican attorneys general. The suit seeks to challenge one part of a series of proposals Biden has introduced after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an earlier attempt to cancel student loans that would have offered broader relief.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, makes similar arguments to a lawsuit filed last month by Kansas Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach and alleges that the Biden administration is overstepping its authority in attempting to forgive student loan debt. It also takes issue with the cost of the plan and alleges that it would be more expensive than the administration’s earlier attempt.

“With the stroke of his pen, Joe Biden is attempting to saddle working Missourians with a half trillion dollars in college debt,” Bailey said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Republican attorney general argued that Biden lacks the authority to cancel student loan debt without permission from Congress.

“Yet again, the President is unilaterally trying to impose an extraordinarily expensive and controversial policy that he could not get through Congress,” the lawsuit said.

The Republican attorneys general of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma joined Bailey in filing the suit.

The lawsuit focuses on a Department of Education plan called the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan. In February, the White House announced it would forgive the debt of 153,000 Americans who borrowed less than $12,000 and have been repaying their loans for more than 10 years, including around $22.4 million for 2,780 Missourians.

But Bailey’s lawsuit comes as the Biden administration is trying to draw attention to their latest proposal in a series of debt forgiveness plans.

On Monday, President Joe Biden traveled to Madison and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Philadelphia to hold events centered around the student debt proposal.

The debt relief proposal would eliminate accrued interest for 23 million borrowers and cancel the full amount of student debate for more than 4 million people, according to the Biden administration. The proposal would also provide more than 10 million Americans with at least $5,000 in debt relief.

The proposal unveiled by the Biden administration on Monday is targeted to borrowers who have struggled to make their payments and would be extended to people who have not applied for assistance from the SAVE plan, but are eligible for relief.

It would cancel the undergraduate student debt of people who have been making payments for more than 20 years and for borrowers who owe more than they did when they started making payments, according to the White House.

Biden’s recent debt relief efforts come after Missouri played a central role in the Supreme Court’s decision to block the Biden administration’s previous attempt to forgive up to $30,000 in student loan debt for some Americans.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that the White House anticipated lawsuits from Republicans.

“We know what Republicans are going to do,” Jean-Pierre said. “We can’t stop them from that. But it’s also not going to stop the President on acting and taking action like he’s doing today.”

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, in a statement on Tuesday touted Biden’s debt relief plan and the president was fulfilling a promise to help people who are weighed down by student loan debt.

“No matter how many times Republican elected officials try to block him, they shouldn’t be surprised that President Biden continues to go to bat for working- and middle-class families, and I’m proud to stand right there with him,” Cleaver said.

The White House has said it has studied the Supreme Court’s previous ruling and is on more solid legal ground with the new proposal.

The administration’s new efforts at student loan forgiveness use a different legal authority than the previous plan, which attempted to take advantage of power granted to the president by congress during a state of emergency -- at the time the COVID-19 pandemic.

The White House has also said the new plan is more targeted toward specific types of borrowers.

The Supreme Court’s ruling against Biden’s previous plan relied on harm done to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority or MOHELA, a quasi-governmental group that helps support Missouri scholarships. Attorneys for Missouri argued that the previous attempt would harm the program.

Bailey’s lawsuit filed on Tuesday makes similar arguments.

The program’s executive director did not immediately respond to a request for comment.