Days before the Supreme Court takes on Biden's student-loan forgiveness, Elizabeth Warren urges it to 'do its job and apply the law as it is written'

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren urged the Supreme Court to uphold Biden's student-debt relief.
• She's among the number of Democratic lawmakers urging the court to preserve the loan forgiveness.
• The two lawsuits that have paused Biden's plan are beginning arguments on February 28.

Democratic lawmakers are using the remaining days before the Supreme Court takes up President Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness to urge it to preserve the relief for millions of Americans.

On Tuesday, the nation's highest court will take on the two conservative-backed lawsuits that paused Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers. Since November, the Education Department stopped accepting new applications for Biden's relief, and it's now up to the Supreme Court to decide whether the loan forgiveness is legal and can be implemented, or should be permanently blocked.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has been one of the leading Democratic lawmakers pushing for debt cancellation, reiterated to Insider her belief that if the Supreme Court appropriately applies the law, it should find that Biden has the authority to cancel student debt.

"President Biden has the legal authority to cancel student debt. President Biden's cancellation plan will deliver critical relief to tens of millions of hardworking Americans who have been crushed by student debt," Warren told Insider. "The Supreme Court needs to do its job and apply the law as it is written."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, joined Warren by writing on Twitter that the Supreme "Court can and MUST side with precedent, and we the people, over these hypocritical lawsuits from out-of-touch GOP politicians," and Rep. Cori Bush, whose district is in Missouri — a state involved in one of the lawsuits — wrote on Twitter on Friday that "the whole case is the latest example of the GOP putting profits over people & championing policies that hurt our communities."

—Congresswoman Cori Bush (@RepCori) February 24, 2023

Warren and Jayapal, along with other Democratic lawmakers including Reps. Max Frost, Ilhan Omar, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, are planning to join a rally on Tuesday with a coalition of student-loan borrowers and advocacy groups pushing for debt cancellation and pushing back against the lawsuits in question.

One of the cases was filed by six Republican-led states who argued the debt relief would hurt their states' tax revenues, along with the revenue of Missouri-based student-loan company MOHELA, and the other lawsuit was filed on behalf of two student-loan borrowers who did not qualify for the full $20,000 amount of relief. 

While the White House and Democrats have argued those cases do not have standing, Republican lawmakers have continued to say that Biden cannot cancel student debt broadly without Congressional approval — and that's it's an unfair policy.

GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn, for example, wrote on Twitter on Thursday that "canceling student debt is Biden's gift to young left-wing activists. He wants hardworking Americans to pay for coastal elites to get their gender studies degrees."

She also led GOP senators in filing an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court urging it to strike down Biden's debt relief. It's unclear how the conservative-majority court will rule on this Democratic policy, but Biden's administration has expressed confidence that the plan follows the law and should be upheld.

"Our student debt relief program will help borrowers most at risk of delinquency or default from the pandemic get back on their feet," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wrote on Twitter. "@POTUS & I will keep fighting against efforts to rob middle class families of the relief they need and deserve."

White House: End of national emergency shouldn't mean end of relief

A primary criticism of Biden's debt relief is his usage of the HEROES Act, which gives the Education Secretary the ability to waive or modify student-loan balances in connection with a national emergency, like COVID-19. The two conservative-backed lawsuits, along with GOP lawmakers, have argued that the relief is an overreach of that authority because the law does not allow for such broad relief for millions of Americans. Biden also declared that the national emergency for COVID-19 will end in May, potentially complicating matters.

But people familiar with the administration's legal strategy told reporters on a Thursday call that Biden's plan is directed toward remedying the consequences of a national emergency, not stopping the spread of disease — and those financial consequences will remain long after the emergency is over.

Former Rep. George Miller, one of the architects of the HEROES Act, also wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post this week explaining why he believes Biden's debt relief falls well within the law's authority, writing that "by giving officials the authority to 'waive' those requirements in connection with a national emergency, Congress empowered officials to say that those requirements no longer apply — that borrowers no longer need to pay off the debt they owe."

Miller's former colleagues disagree — former GOP lawmakers who also constructed the law wrote in a separate amicus brief that if "Congress really meant for the HEROES Act to confer this type of authority on the Secretary, it would have said so."

This scale of student-loan forgiveness is unprecedented, so it's hard to determine which way the Supreme Court will rule. But Warren, Biden, and Democrats are hoping that the 40 million borrowers who would qualify for this relief will end up getting it.