Seven Republican-led states launched a new court challenge to the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan, emphasizing the Department of Education is taking action to start canceling loans as soon as this week.
The lawsuit is the latest Republican push to disrupt President Joe Biden’s effort to cancel student loan debt, a key campaign promise for the outgoing Democratic president. Republican attorneys general from Missouri, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio filed the suit Tuesday.
The new loan forgiveness plan was created in an effort to work around a recent Supreme Court decision that struck down Biden’s initial student loan forgiveness rollout that would have canceled up to $20,000 in debt per borrower for up to 43 million people.
The new plan is much more narrow and was designed to lower monthly payments for borrowers and speed up the forgiveness process for some. The state attorneys general filed the lawsuit in federal court in Georgia and took aim at the rule that would provide a waiver of federal student loan debts for about 27.6 million borrowers.
The lawsuit said the Department of Education intends to provide some of the debt relief as early as this week, citing obtained documents. The lawsuit also claims this violates a statute that prevents the secretary from putting into place a rule sooner than 60 days after publication.
“Courts stopped him [Education Secretary Edward Cardona] the first two times, when he tried to do so openly,” the lawsuit states. “So now he is trying to do so through cloak and dagger.”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is leading the suit, said in a statement that he has “no doubt” courts will block the plan.
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“They may be throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, but my office is meeting them every step of the way,” he said in a press release about the lawsuit.
The Education Department has declined to comment on the pending litigation but said it will “continue to fight for borrowers across the country who are struggling to repay their federal student loans.”