But expect to hear a lot about the lawn care kid.
Chief Justice Roberts presented a hypothetical where two brothers went to college: one of them took federal loans and the other took a loan to start a lawn care business to save and/or pay off his tuition. Justice Roberts asked why the lawn care kid shouldn't have his loans forgiven.
The Biden Administration's position is: oh, that kid is SOL.
5 comments:
Because the federal government guarantees federal loans, but does not guarantee lawn care business costs?
A more complicated legal question is how the court will weasel past the lack of standing.
And how will the new "standing, shmnanding, whatevs" standard bite the GOP in the ass on some case in 2038?
Ever since a 2007 Supreme Court opinion by Justice Stevens titled Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 US 497 (2007), its been much easier for states to satisfy standing requirements. Of course, the left cheered that opinion because it allowed states to have standing based on a generalized harm from global warming. To justify the new doctrine, Stevens noted that given "Massachusetts' stake in protecting its quasi-sovereign interests, the Commonwealth is entitled to special solicitude in our standing analysis."
But once you start handing out "special solicitude" where does it stop? It certainly won't stop with left leaning states and causes. The left, having succeeded in its efforts to expand state standing, is about to be hoisted on its own petard, but oh so gently, with "special solicitude".
You pretend that going forward, such a ruling will exclusively affect "the left." But that has failed to trigger me. And you don't believe it, either. It's just something to say.
John Roberts opposed Massachusetts v. EPA, writing an emphatic dissent. Alito and Thomas joined him.
So the Chief Justice's vote should be fun. Maybe this student debt forgiveness case should be renamed Roberts v. Roberts.
For Roberts (who can call something a tax, when it's not, as needed to preserve Obamacare), this should be a piece of cake.
Also, if you read his dissent in Massachusetts v. EPA, Roberts already has an easy framework to distinguish his views on standing in that case. In the Massachusetts case, Roberts explained that the connection between the purported environmental harm to petitioner (the loss of coastal land) and the proposed EPA rule "is far too speculative to establish causation" for Article III standing.
In the student loan case, however, there is a non-speculative (priced out by the CBO) 400 billion dollar price tag which will be borne by the taxpayers of each state. To Roberts, and likely the majority in the student loan case, that is going to look very different than speculating about the effect of an EPA rule on Massachusetts' coastline.
The question is how the alleged prospective harm to a separate loan agency equates to the state of Missouri having standing.
The stated premise is that if the student debt is forgiven, a loan servicer agency would lose the revenue it earns from servicing the loans, and thus the state of Missouri itself would thus be directly harmed because the agency makes payments to the Missouri treasury, which in turn helps fund projects for state universities, which constitutes the harm.
A Rube Goldberg argument for standing. And "far too speculative to establish causation." But don't worry. Most observers believe this court will find a way.
It also doesn't help that the other half of the suit is being brought two plaintiffs who are unaffected by the debt forgiveness plan.
Heads, the debt relief goes through. Tails, Biden campaigns on the stolen court stealing young voters' money. It's a win/win/win, with the third win coming in 2024.
Post a Comment