Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach is suing President Joe Biden and his administration over the $156 billion in federal student debt forgiveness from the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan.
Kobach filed the 38-page lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Wichita. He told reporters at a news conference in Topeka that he plans to ask a federal judge to issue an injunction so borrowers remain obligated to make payments on their student loans.
“President Biden is defying the ruling of the United States Supreme Court while also seizing power from Congress,” Kobach said. “Fortunately, in America, we live in a constitutional republic and the courts can strike down an illegal or unconstitutional executive act. That is what we are asking the court to do in this case, and we look forward to seeing the president’s attorneys in court.”
Kansas is leading a coalition of states that include Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. They name Biden, education secretary Miguel Cardona and the U.S. Department of Education as defendants.
The lawsuit’s four counts allege the Biden administration violated the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers, that the agency exceeded its statutory authority, that the agency action is “arbitrary and capricious” and the agency violated law on administrative procedures.
It asks the court to declare the SAVE Plan unlawful and block it from being implemented.
Kobach was part of previous lawsuit on student debt forgiveness
Kobach was part of a similar coalition in 2023, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration didn’t have the authority to erase up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt for most borrowers and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.
“In spite of that loss, and in completely brazen fashion, the president pressed ahead anyway and implemented another version of the student loan forgiveness program,” Kobach said. “The president even boasted, quote, ‘the Supreme Court blocked it. … But that didn’t stop me.'”
“President Biden’s new student loan forgiveness program is slightly smaller than the old one, at least for now, but it’s just as illegal,” he added.
What is the SAVE Plan?
Almost 8 million people are enrolled in the SAVE Plan, which calculates payments based on income and family size rather than the balance on their loan. Monthly payments are calculated by discretionary income, which is defined as the difference between gross income and 225% of the federally defined poverty level — for an individual that would equal $33,885.
About 4.5 million borrowers have qualified for a total elimination of monthly payments under the plan, which is limited to people making less than $16 an hour. Those earning above those thresholds will still benefit from the halving of payments from 10% to 5% of their discretionary income and a reduced timeframe before loans are forgiven.
Last summer, the White House said that 35,000 Kansas borrowers had enrolled in SAVE. The administration estimated that more than 20 million Americans could benefit.
“This plan is the most generous repayment program ever,” Biden said in February.
Kobach called the program “profoundly unfair.”
“I think it would be difficult for anyone to answer why it is fair to transfer money from those who have less to those who have more,” Kobach said. “It forces taxpayers, including people who did not go to college because they couldn’t afford it, and people who work their way through to college and people who saved money and then went to college, it forces them to pay for the student loans of those who ran up exorbitant student debt. That’s simply unfair.”
Kobach wants the courts to move quickly to block student debt relief
“I am aware that letters are going out right now under the second version of the Biden plan, telling people that their loans are forgiven,” Kobach said. “And indeed in Kansas, they’ve already sent out letters indicating that millions of dollars in loans have been forgiven.
“In fact, they made an announcement — I think it was this morning or last night — in anticipation of this case, celebrating how many millions of dollars in loan forgiveness had already been issued in Kansas. Well, that is illegal, and we will be asking the courts to enjoin that action.”
Kobach said the lawsuit could make it to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, where a case goes directly to the Supreme Court after an appellate court rules on a preliminary injunction. Still, Kobach said it’s unlikely to make it to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals until late summer.
The Supreme Court typically is in recess between late June and early July until the first Monday in October.
Why is Kansas leading the lawsuit?
Kobach said Kansas works with other states to divide the labor on cases challenging the federal government. Kansas is leading this case because “we agreed to take the mantle and lead the charge.”
Kansas leading the case means any appeal would go through the 10th Circuit, which Kobach described as “somewhere in the middle” on a conservative to progressive scale.
“But I would say in a case like this, which is really unusual, where you have a Supreme Court ruling, then you have the administration turning around in less than a year and implementing something that appears to go directly against that ruling — it’s so brazen that in any circuit this case should prevail,” he said.
Kobach campaigned to ‘sue Joe Biden’
Kobach ran for office in 2022 with a campaign promise on his election signs to “sue Joe Biden.” He said he hasn’t kept track of how many times he has done so.
“We don’t have a tally sheet, we don’t have a scoreboard on the wall,” Kobach said.
He guessed there have been more than 10 cases, and if you count legal threats in comment letters, it is closer to 20.
As for whether he thinks Biden is acting politically, Kobach said “it could be purely coincidence” that the president’s student loan plans have been advanced during election cycles, but “then again, it might not be pure coincidence.”
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