Kagan says the Supreme Court risks becoming ‘a danger to a democratic order’ after it axed Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
- Justice Elena Kagan slammed the Supreme Court for striking down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
- Kagan said SCOTUS greatly exceeded its authority in doing so.
- The high court, Kagan argued, is approaching a future that is “a danger to a democratic order.”
Justice Elena Kagan blasted the Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts for finding that the Biden administration exceeded its authority by approving a $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kagan in a scorching dissent argued that the court itself overstepped its bounds and by doing so is barreling to a future where it is the “maker of national policy” by failing to defer to President Joe Biden and Congress to set the national agenda.
“That is no proper role for a court,” Kagan wrote. “And it is a danger to a democratic order.”
Roberts and the court’s other five conservative justices found that Biden and the Education Department went far beyond what the 9/11-era law they rooted the loan forgiveness program allowed for.
Kagan, joined by the court’s other two liberals,
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, strongly disagreed with that conclusion. The Obama-appointee sided with the Biden administration, agreeing that the White House did not need congressional approval regardless of how much the forgiveness would have cost.
“Congress knew that national emergencies would continue to arise,” Kagan wrote. “And Congress decided that when they did, the Secretary should have the power to offer relief without waiting for another, incident-specific round of legislation”
In a continuing trend, Kagan’s dissent is notably dismissive of Robert’s opinion in what was one of the high court’s most closely watched cases this term.
“From the first page to the last, today’s opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint,” Kagan wrote.
At another point in her dissent, Kagan wrote “when a court is confident in its interpretation of a statute’s text, it spells out its reading and hits the send button. Not this Court, not today.”
