 On Friday, we learned that a Trump appointed U.S. District Court judge from Texas, Mark Pittman, has blocked Joe Biden's student debt relief program, forcing the administration to stop accepting applications immediately and leaving 16 million applicants who were already approved for student debt relief in limbo. So the question is, now what? And this is a question that is impossible to answer, but as someone with student debt myself, who is really looking forward to the $20,000 worth of relief, I'm angry and I saw a lot of answers and there's really no correct answer to this. But the Biden administration has stated that they're going to fight by appealing this case. Now, we already know that if they appeal this case, it's going to make its way to the Supreme Court and myself, along with probably everyone watching this video knows the way that that's going to go. It's not going to go in our direction. The Supreme Court will block Biden's student debt relief program. But even if that happens, there are things that Biden can do to still circumvent that ruling if he wants to. Now, to understand that, we have to understand the ways in which Biden sought this authority to cancel student loan debt. And I want to revisit an article from August that we already talked about on this program, but it's very informative. It was written by Mark Joseph Stern of Slate and he explains how Biden derived his authority to cancel student debt from a 2003 law called the Heroes Act. Stern explains the Heroes Act passed in the wake of 9-11 gives the Secretary of Education authority to waive or modify any provision of the law applicable to student aid programs in connection with the war or other military operations or national emergency. The Secretary may exercise this power to ensure that borrowers are not placed in a worse position financially in relation to their loans because they were affected by the emergency. Now, the national emergency in question, obviously, is the COVID-19 pandemic. When Trump was president, he declared the COVID pandemic a national emergency. And when Biden took over, he extended that declaration. And under the law, what is or isn't a national emergency is defined by the president of the United States. And furthermore, the Biden administration already used authority from this law to cancel student debt for more than one million borrowers with no legal resistance from the right, but assuming that they knew that widespread cancellation would be popular. The GOP was hellbent on destroying this program. So in the event this were to make it to the Supreme Court, here's a couple of arguments as outlined by Stern that the Supreme Court may consider to strike down student debt relief. He explains there are at least three major questions that the Supreme Court could identify here. First, the majority might say that the ability to waive or modify aspects of the law does not allow the secretary to cancel payments. Second, the majority could say that COVID is not the kind of national emergency envisioned by the law. Third, the majority could say that an affected group must be smaller and more targeted than every low or middle income American who lived through the pandemic. Now, Stern argues that the first two lines of attack are legally very weak, but it's not necessarily absurd to think that the Supreme Court wouldn't strike it down on the basis of the third argument that we just heard. Now, in the event that happens, what can Biden do? Well, he could circumvent the Supreme Court striking that down by adjusting his student debt cancellation plan to essentially narrow the scope and meet their criteria. So rather than just canceling it for anyone who is a low income earner by means testing it, you simply make it so that way you force people to apply for student debt cancellation if they've been affected by the pandemic and if they can prove that the pandemic has burdened them. Now, what is and isn't proof that the pandemic has been burdened? Some is pretty broad. I mean, there's a number of ways that the pandemic has affected people. I mean, mentally, when it comes to employment losing a family member. So it wouldn't be difficult to cancel the debt of almost everyone who Biden wanted to, assuming they're able to come up with some reason the pandemic has proved burdensome to them. Now, this will be an issue because it's going to limit the pull of beneficiaries and it's going to be a bureaucratic nightmare. But still, almost everyone who was burdened by the pandemic in some way, i.e. most of the people who already qualified for student debt belief will still have access to student debt relief. Now, if that proves to burdensome and the eligibility pull is too narrow there, Biden can simply reissue an executive order under authority from the 1965 Higher Education Act, where it's very clear that he does indeed have the authority to cancel student debt, but more of that in a second. There were some legal vulnerabilities to Biden's executive order here. The first is the universality and means testing that set it up for a legal challenge, because if you make it so that way, you have to qualify for student debt relief, then that's going to take some time. But if he just said, look, student debt relief is available to everyone and we're canceling it all like that. Well, once you cancel it, once it's gone, there's not anything that the GOP can do. But by setting up a program where you means tested and you have to have additional bureaucracy and an application process, you're giving the GOP time to sue you and potentially block this. And that proved to be exactly what they did. So the Biden administration should have anticipated this. Now, moving on to using the authority from the 1965 Higher Education Act, even if Biden did derive his authority to cancel student debt from that particular law, would they still sue him? Yes, they would find some way to try to block him from doing something good. The problem is that it would be more difficult legally to find standing and to have an argument against him if he did use his authority from that. Now, in a letter to Elizabeth Warren, when she called on Biden to cancel student debt, Harvard Law School argues that it is indeed legal and permissible for the president to cancel student debt under the 1965 Higher Education Act. Stating, Congress has granted the secretary a more specific and unrestricted authority to create and to cancel or modify debt owed under federal student loan programs in the Higher Education Act itself. That provision empowers the secretary to execute the broad debt cancellation plan you have proposed. Now, I'm no legal expert, but you can argue that because that law exists, it doesn't necessarily matter where Biden derives the authority to cancel student debt from. He has that authority because this is the law. But by citing the Heroes Act of 2003, as opposed to the Higher Education Act or relying on the Heroes Act, you know, that kind of set it up for more legal challenges than were necessary. But again, I think that all of this is probably moot because the GOP is going to find some ways to attack it. Now, I say that because there's already multiple lawsuits against Biden's student debt cancellation. Now, the first, which led to Biden's student debt cancellation plan being temporarily placed on hold in late October, not to be confused with a new order today by three more Republican appointed judges who block the program nationwide until all court cases are resolved has essentially fallen apart at this point as one of the student loan servicers from Missouri, the MOHELA, cited in the lawsuit as one of the student loan servicing companies that would be harmed by debt relief because of lost revenue from fees. And they'd also be deprived of interest payments. They actually came out and they said that they're not even a party to the lawsuit leaving the state of Missouri, one of the states suing to essentially have to sue the Biden administration on behalf of MOHELA, which it obviously doesn't have the standing to do, but they're trying to claim that they have standing because MOHELA is essentially an entity of the state. This is what their right wing attorney general is arguing. And other states have signed on to this suit. But I mean, the floor has been pulled out from under them. So this case is what led to Biden having this whole lobby blocked. But I mean, now they don't really have a case. So the one in question that actually led to it being permanently blocked, at least for now, until it's appealed, is this one. Per the New Republic, the second case of concern is the legal brainchild of the Job Creators Network, a right wing front group funded by the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, and the notorious Mercer Family Foundation, which purports to speak for small business owners. Rebecca Mercer is Steve Bannon's buddy. They lined their case up with a Trump-appointed judge named Mark Pittman, who sits in, where else? Texas and who looks poised to tow the party line, no matter that the case is laughably weak. The Job Creators case involves two Texas-based plaintiffs, Myra Brown and Alexander Taylor, who claim to be harmed by Biden's cancellation plan. Little is known about them and they have not spoken to the media. Both filed a few sparse sentences about their lives and motivations. Brown, who appears to own a sign making business, is ineligible for relief because of specific kinds of loans she holds. She has FFELP loans, which are backed by the federal government, but were originally funded by private companies. Alexander Taylor, who appears to be a graduate student at the Catholic University of Dallas, is ostensibly upset because he will only get $10,000 of cancellation and not $20,000 that former Pell Grant recipients can receive. In other words, they're claiming to be harmed because they are not eligible for cancellation or enough of it. But instead of suing to expand the program, which would make sense, they are a party to a reactionary lawsuit seeking to block relief for everyone. And if this case wasn't already comically absurd on its face, it gets better yet because one of the plaintiffs in this case had a $48,000 PPP loan from the government that was forgiven. But because she doesn't qualify for this one, well, she's now a party to the lawsuit that is trying to block it for everyone. I mean, talk about being selfish. This is as selfish as it gets. But again, these are folks that I don't think they're good faith actors. I don't think that they're suing the Biden administration because they want to, you know, get in on some of the fun. I mean, what would appease them? Well, if Biden expanded the program, but they're suing him to stop it for everyone so it doesn't make sense, right? And it's not supposed to make sense. They're just trying to find some way to block this. And they're basically tools for the right who's trying to stop this. Now, there is a third case brought on by the Cato Institute. Let's talk about that one. A third case worth watching brought about by the Libertarian Cato Institute is equally absurd. For example, the organization objects to Biden's plan because student loan cancellation will make it hard for it to recruit and retain indebted employees. Big government has a role to play after all, it seems. It also teed up its litigation with a Trump appointed judge. So these absolute clowns are scrambling to find some plaintiff withstanding, find some reason to sue the Biden administration because they just can't handle the peasants having something, see all the tax cuts, all of the loans. They're supposed to go to the rich, not the peasants, not working class Americans, didn't you hear? But ultimately, like whether or not this survives, I think it's going to come down to whether or not the Biden administration is going to fight. I hope that because the election is over, they're still going to fight this. But in the event this gets appealed to the Supreme Court and they lose, which I think is likely, will Biden continue to fight? Will he issue a new executive order? Will he try to circumvent this by trying to limit the criteria for who isn't isn't acceptable? We'll just have to wait and see right now. He's saying he's going to fight this, but I hope that he does. Or I hope that he issues a new executive order where it's just canceled entirely. Because again, if you cancel it, then it's gone. You can't bring it back once it's canceled. So if you genuinely want to cancel student debt and we had to drag his feet to get him to this point in the first place, then there are other things that you could do to fight. But what matters is that you don't stop fighting. And I'm saying this to Biden because he's definitely watching. You don't stop fighting and you find other ways to circumvent these lawsuits that everyone anticipated because we know that the right isn't going to let this stand, so you have to do everything in your power to make sure that this survives legally as daunting and bleak is the outcome, maybe he's got to keep fighting because this is something that was promised and Democrats will not do well if this 10,000, $20,000 of debt that they promised they'd cancel isn't delivered by 2024. So they've got to keep fighting and I will keep you all posted on this because I have a personal interest in this story. I've got a lot of student debt and if I don't get $10,000, $20,000 worth of relief, I got pale grants, so I qualify for 20,000. Then I'm going to be pissed. So I'll continue to follow the story and keep you up to date.