(The Center Square) – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is pleased that a federal judge in Kansas has agreed with his request to block President Joe Biden’s student loan relief effort.
“This is great news that a court is blocking the President’s plan to buy votes from young, recent graduates and driving our country deeper into debt,” said Knudsen in a press release.
The attorney general views the loan relief effort as more of a “loan cancellation scheme” in an election year.
“Hardworking Montanans should not be forced to foot the bill for anyone’s education, but their own,” the attorney general said.
The ruling comes after a lawsuit from Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. Knudsen joined that effort with the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.
The attorneys general said the Department of Education wrongly interpreted the Higher Education Act and went around the U.S. House and Senate to write its own rules. The Biden administration said the president’s SAVE Plan would cancel over $100 billion in student loan debt and help struggling families make ends meet.
“We’re talking about folks who are literallybeing crushed,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre told reporters in May. “They’re trying to get their lives back on track.”
Knudsen argued that cancellation of student loans would harm Montana’s economy through a loss of state tax revenue and jobs, as well as increasing law enforcement costs. Knudsen also points out that the United States Supreme Court told Biden in 2022 that he did not have the authority to unilaterally cancel student loans through the HEROES Act.
“Now with a new name, and a different authority, his administration is once again trying to take the same unlawful steps with the SAVE Plan,” said Knudsen.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree, an Obama appointee, issued the ruling on Monday. U.S. District Judge John Ross in Missouri issued a similar, separate ruling in another case that same day. Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, and Oklahoma are part of that lawsuit.
Referring to his cancellation efforts on social media and the campaign trail, President Biden has stated that Trump-allied Republicans and the Supreme Court did not stop him.