State Attorney General

[Coyote]

Nebraska, other states bring argument against student loan forgiveness to Supreme Court



Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers addressed media from Washington after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a lawsuit challenging student loan forgiveness on Tuesday. Nebraska is joined by five other states, including Iowa, Missouri and Kansas, in one of the lawsuits challenging President Joe Biden's move. Hilgers said a major point of the arguments were over "standing" — in other words if the states have the grounds to sue. He called it a "major test for the separation of powers under the constitution."

He said Nebraska Solicitor General James Campbell made a few points on how the move would impact Nebraska's budget but focused on the constitutional power argument. "If the court does uphold this particular action, I think it does drastically widen the scope of executive power," Hilgers said. Hilgers said his team felt good entering the arguments and that did not change during them.

"Our argument from the Supreme Court was that there was no statutory authorization and that congress didn't permit the Secretary (of Education) from doing this really massive action." On the issue of standing, he said the court spent the most time discussing was Mohela, Missouri's public student loan servicer. Supporters of the government's loan forgiveness argue that the entity could have sued but did not, and throws standing into question. "Mohela has the ability to sue or be sued, but it's also public instrumentality of the state," he said. "They didn't sue because the state of Missouri filed suit and they didn't need to sue."