U.S. Supreme Court's 'major questions' test may doom Biden student debt
plan
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[February 23, 2023]
By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shanna Hayes in 2007 became the first member of
her immediate family to attend college. She did not realize she was
setting off on a path toward another, less-welcome family first -
racking up more than $150,000 in student debt.
"At no point did I actually have that conversation," Hayes said,
referring to her lack of financial planning before enrolling at New
England College in New Hampshire. "And to be honest, I didn't ask."
The finances of Hayes and millions of other Americans are in the hands
of the U.S. Supreme Court as it hears arguments next Tuesday in appeals
by President Joe Biden's administration of lower court rulings blocking
his plan announced last August to cancel $430 billion in student debt.
Legal experts said Biden's program, intended to ease the financial
burden on debt-saddled college-educated Americans like Hayes but
criticized by Republicans as an overreach of his authority, may be
scrutinized by the court under the so-called major questions doctrine.
Its 6-3 conservative majority has employed this muscular judicial
approach to invalidate major Biden policies deemed lacking clear
congressional authorization.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Feb/23/images/ads/current/longviewbank_lda_020723.png)
Hayes, 34, said she plans to join a rally outside the court on Tuesday
supporting Biden's plan. The Alexandria, Virginia resident earned an
undergraduate degree in mathematics and taught high school math before
obtaining graduate degrees in higher education administration and sports
management at Southern New Hampshire University, where she went on to
work in various roles supporting students. She is now seeking a job
promoting higher education access and equity.
The major questions doctrine is an outgrowth of an approach favored by
many conservatives and business groups to curb what they call the
excesses of the "administrative state." They object to what they see as
accumulated power by the U.S. government's executive branch without
proper checks by the courts and Congress.
The conservative justices already have shown skepticism toward giving
deference to federal agency decisions.
"It now looms over any big agency action that the administration wants
to do," University of San Diego law professor Mila Sohoni said of the
major questions doctrine. "The doctrine allows courts a great deal of
leeway to pick and choose which agency actions to strike down and which
to sustain."
$1.6 TRILLION DEBT
About 45 million U.S. borrowers hold $1.6 trillion in federal student
loan debt, with the typical undergraduate finishing college with $25,000
in debt, according to White House figures.
Many borrowers experienced financial strain during the COVID-19
pandemic. Beginning in 2020, the administrations of President Donald
Trump, a Republican, and Biden, a Democrat, repeatedly paused federal
student loan payments and halted interest from accruing.
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![](../images/022323PIX/news_a28.jpg)
Shanna Hayes poses for a photograph at
the U.S. Supreme Court, ahead of a case to reinstate U.S. President
Biden’s debt cancellation plan, in Washington, U.S., February 22,
2023. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Feb/23/images/ads/current/graue_lda_preowned_022023.jpg)
Both administrations relied upon a 2003 federal law called the
Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, or HEROES
Act, that allows student loan debt relief during wartime or national
emergencies.
Biden relied upon the HEROES Act when he unveiled plans to cancel up
to $10,000 in federal student debt for Americans making under
$125,000 and $20,000 for recipients of Pell grants awarded to
students from lower-income families.
The program drew swift legal challenges. Two lawsuits - one by six
conservative-leaning states and the other by two student loan
borrowers who opposed the plan's eligibility requirements - prompted
lower courts to block it.
In the case brought by individual borrowers, Texas-based U.S.
District Judge Mark Pittman, a Trump appointee, in November found
the plan violated the major questions doctrine - a ruling that the
New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put
on hold pending appeal.
'INSUFFICIENT FUNDS'
The major questions doctrine gives judges broad discretion to
invalidate executive agency actions unless Congress clearly
authorized them in legislation. Sohoni said a policy being blocked
under the major questions doctrine was like "an agency trying to
cash a check and the court saying, 'No, you've got insufficient
funds.'"
The justices used the doctrine since Biden took office in 2021 to
block the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from
extending eviction protections for cash-strapped residential
renters, stymie his COVID-19 vaccination-or-testing mandate for
large businesses and restrict the Environmental Protection Agency's
power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing in the EPA ruling, said the
major questions doctrine "developed over a series of significant
cases, all addressing a particular and recurring problem: agencies
asserting highly consequential power beyond what Congress could
reasonably be understood to have granted."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Feb/23/images/ads/current/humanesociety_sda022411.png)
Student borrowers hope their stories are not overlooked. For Hayes,
Biden's loan forgiveness would enable her to buy a home.
"It will be the difference between us being able to include both of
our incomes on a new place or only my wife's income," Hayes said.
"As we look ahead for what's to come, it will directly impact how we
are able to live."
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)
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