\n\n“Roberts\u2019s attempts to make the Heroes Act mean something other than what it says are at times confusing and difficult to parse. But it basically boils down to this: In order to provide for the particular mix of student loan relief prescribed by the Biden administration\u2019s policy, the secretary had to both \u201cwaive\u201d some student loan obligations and \u201cmodify\u201d others. That is, the policy only works if the secretary has the power to outright eliminate some obligations, while merely making changes to others.
The chief\u2019s primary attack on the Heroes Act\u2019s statutory language is that he reads the word \u201cmodify\u201d too narrowly to permit these changes. As he writes, the word \u201cmodify\u201d \u201ccarries \u2018a connotation of increment or limitation,\u2019 and must be read to mean \u2018to change moderately or in minor fashion.\u2019\u201d And then he faults the Biden administration for doing too much, attempting to \u201ctransform\u201d student loan obligations instead of merely making \u201cmodest adjustments.\u201d”
…
“\u201cIn the HEROES Act,\u201d Kagan notes, \u201cthe dominant piece of context is that \u2018modify\u2019 does not stand alone. It is one part of a couplet: \u2018waive or modify.\u2019\u201d The word \u201cwaive\u201d moreover means \u201celiminate,\u201d so Congress explicitly gave the secretary the power to simply wipe away student loan obligations altogether.”
…
“Perhaps recognizing that his attempts to parse the text of the Heroes Act may not be entirely persuasive, Roberts\u2019s opinion also offers an alternative reason to strike down Biden\u2019s student loan forgiveness program \u2014 something known as the \u201cmajor questions doctrine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Briefly, the major questions doctrine states that the Court expects \u201cCongress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast \u2018economic and political significance.\u2019\u201d<\/a> And, as Roberts writes, there\u2019s little question that this student loans policy, which could forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans, involves matters of great significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the most important thing to understand about the major questions doctrine is that it is completely made up<\/a>. It appears nowhere in the Constitution, and nowhere in any statute, and was invented largely by Republican appointees to the Supreme Court. It is true that the Supreme Court has invoked this made-up doctrine several times in the recent past \u2014 mostly in opinions joined entirely by Republican-appointed justices who wished to strike down policies pushed by Democratic presidents \u2014 but, in relying on this fabricated legal doctrine one more time, Roberts effectively cites past power grabs by the justices to justify a new power grab.And even if you accept the major questions doctrine as legitimate, it\u2019s not clear why Biden\u2019s student loans program still should not be upheld. The doctrine merely states that Congress must \u201cspeak clearly\u201d if it wishes to delegate significant authority to a federal agency. And, for the reasons explained in the previous section, Congress spoke quite clearly when it wrote the Heroes Act.” “Roberts\u2019s attempts to make the Heroes Act mean something other than what it says are at times confusing and difficult to parse. But it basically boils down to this: In order to provide for the particular mix of student loan relief prescribed by the Biden administration\u2019s policy, the secretary had to both \u201cwaive\u201d some student loan obligations and \u201cmodify\u201d others. That is, the policy only works if the secretary has the power to outright eliminate some obligations, while merely making changes to others.<\/p>\n The chief\u2019s primary attack on the Heroes Act\u2019s statutory language is that he reads the word \u201cmodify\u201d too narrowly to permit these changes. As he writes, the word \u201cmodify\u201d \u201ccarries \u2018a connotation of increment or limitation,\u2019 and must be read to mean \u2018to change moderately or in minor fashion.\u2019\u201d And then he faults the Biden administration for doing too much, attempting to \u201ctransform\u201d student loan obligations instead of merely making \u201cmodest adjustments.\u201d”<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n “\u201cIn the HEROES Act,\u201d Kagan notes, \u201cthe dominant piece of context is that \u2018modify\u2019 does not stand alone. It is one part of a couplet: \u2018waive or modify.\u2019\u201d The word \u201cwaive\u201d moreover means \u201celiminate,\u201d so Congress explicitly gave the secretary the power to simply wipe away student loan obligations altogether.”<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n “Perhaps recognizing that his attempts to parse the text of the Heroes Act may not be entirely persuasive, Roberts\u2019s opinion also offers an alternative reason to strike down Biden\u2019s student loan forgiveness program \u2014 something known as the \u201cmajor questions doctrine.\u201d But the most important thing to understand about the major questions doctrine is that it is completely made up. It appears nowhere in the Constitution, and nowhere in any statute, and was invented largely by Republican appointees to the Supreme Court. It is true that the Supreme Court has invoked this made-up doctrine several times in the recent past \u2014 mostly in opinions joined entirely by Republican-appointed justices who wished to strike down policies pushed by Democratic presidents \u2014 but, in relying on this fabricated legal doctrine one more time, Roberts effectively cites past power grabs by the justices to justify a new power grab.<\/p>\n And even if you accept the major questions doctrine as legitimate, it\u2019s not clear why Biden\u2019s student loans program still should not be upheld. The doctrine merely states that Congress must \u201cspeak clearly\u201d if it wishes to delegate significant authority to a federal agency. And, for the reasons explained in the previous section, Congress spoke quite clearly when it wrote the Heroes Act.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[790,1213,1263,1160,740,528],"class_list":["post-11216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-courts","tag-judiciary","tag-partisanship","tag-student-debt","tag-student-loans","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11217,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11216\/revisions\/11217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
https:\/\/www.vox.com\/scotus\/2023\/6\/30\/23779903\/supreme-court-student-loan-biden-nebraska-john-roberts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nBriefly, the major questions doctrine states that the Court expects \u201cCongress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast \u2018economic and political significance.\u2019\u201d And, as Roberts writes, there\u2019s little question that this student loans policy, which could forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans, involves matters of great significance.<\/p>\n