Ayanna Pressley
- Rep. Ayanna Pressley told Insider it's not the time for a backup plan on student-debt relief.
- "We are still in this. The president has the authority," Pressley said outside the Supreme Court.
- The Supreme Court concluded oral arguments on the cases challenging Biden's debt relief on Tuesday.
It's time to push for the legality of President Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness — not a backup plan if it gets struck down, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley said.
Lawmakers, advocates, and student-loan borrowers gathered outside the Supreme Court hours before it took on the two cases that pauses the implementation of Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt on Tuesday. In an interview with Insider, Pressley — who has long pushed for broad student-loan forgiveness with other Democratic lawmakers — said she's not even thinking about an alternative route to get relief to borrowers if the court's decision doesn't go Biden's way.
"I'm not there yet. I'm ceding nothing," Pressley said. "We are still in this. The president has the authority. The Supreme Court needs to apply the letter of the law, and we need to get this done."
Pressley also told Insider that she will "absolutely" push for student-loan payments to remain on pause until relief reaches borrowers. Biden extended the student-loan payment pause to 60 days after June 30, or 60 days after the lawsuits are resolved, whichever happens first, and there could be a chance borrowers might still resume payments this year even if the Supreme Court strikes down debt relief.
"This movement pushed for those pauses," Pressley said. "It's been game changing and transformative for so many people. By eliminating that bill, I mean, do you all understand that there are people that are paying monthly student loan of bills that are the equivalency of a mortgage?"
Pressley was among a group of Democratic lawmakers who voiced support for student-debt relief outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday morning. Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, who previously challenged student-loan company MOHELA's role in the case brought on by six Republican-led states who argued the relief would hurt the company's revenue, told Insider that "when Republicans used Missouri-based student loan servicer MOHELA to defend their argument against Biden's student debt relief plan, I immediately demanded answers from MOHELA."
"MOHELA's first priority is complying with the contractual obligations set forth by the U.S. Department of Education. Case closed," Bush said. "Even this far-right Supreme Court should be able to recognize that these claims against student debt relief are baseless and politically-motivated. The Supreme Court has both a legal and moral responsibility to dismiss these unfounded arguments and deliver on behalf of the over 40 million borrowers across this country."
During questioning, the Supreme Court justices appeared largely split down partisan lines. The conservative justices asked Biden's team about a potential overreach of executive authority with the plan and whether it's fair, while the liberal justices scrutinized the states' standing to bring MOHELA into the case.
While Republican lawmakers have been on the offense, with GOP members of the House education committee writing in a Tuesday blog post that "cancelation is an insult to those who diligently paid off their loans," Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration maintained they will continue pushing to get relief to millions of borrowers in the country.
"It is the right thing to do when we fight for an equitable higher education system where every American can have a shot at prosperity. It is the right thing to do when we live up to our founding creed of fairness, affording today's generation the same opportunities that prior ones enjoyed," New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, who spoke outside the Supreme Court, said on Tuesday. "Opponents of student loan cancellation are on the wrong side of history; they are using wrong arguments to pursue a wrong policy for the wrong reasons."