Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach will sue the Biden administration on Thursday over its plans to forgive and alter student loans, a spokeswoman for his office confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
Kobach announced in February that he planned to file suit but did not provide an exact time frame for when that would happen.
“Kansas will take the lead in suing the administration, and we intend to win again,” Kobach wrote in the Washington Free-Beacon on Feb. 28.
It appears the lawsuit will materialize exactly one month later.
The announcement comes on the same day as the Biden administration’s “SAVE Day of Action,” designed to promote the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, Plan under which monthly student loan payments are as low as $0 for lower-income borrowers and loans can be written off completely after as little as 10 years.
The SAVE Plan was not approved by Congress, however, and has also generated controversy because any unpaid debts fall on taxpayers. The Penn-Wharton Budget Model estimates that SAVE could cost $475 billion over 10 years.
Biden’s original student loan forgiveness program would have cost at least $400 billion but was struck down by a 6-3 Supreme Court decision last June. He has since forgiven roughly $144 billion using a different legal justification and announced the SAVE Plan, which will lower the amounts that are repaid in the future.
“The Supreme Court blocked it. They blocked it,” Biden said on Feb. 21 in a speech about SAVE. “But that didn’t stop me. I announced we were going to pursue alternative paths for student debt relief for as many borrowers as possible. And that’s the effort that’s been underway the last two years.”
The White House hosted an event Wednesday morning to promote the SAVE Plan featuring speakers from a range of groups including several labor unions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the program will provide struggling borrowers with “a little bit of breathing room” but acknowledged that it has its detractors.
“There are people that are flat-out trying to stop what we’re doing,” he said. “And that tells me that we’re doing the right things because we’re helping those who often don’t have a voice.”
A Department of Education spokesperson said the lawsuit is an attempt by Kansas officials to hurt their own constituents.
“In Kansas, nearly 1,300 borrowers have already received $9.9 million in debt relief under the Biden-Harris Administration’s SAVE plan, and 60,000 Kansas borrowers are saving money on their payments month after month because of SAVE,” the spokesperson said. “The Biden-Harris Administration won’t stop fighting to provide support and relief to borrowers across the country — no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us.”
The Washington Examiner has contacted the White House for comment.
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Biden’s original student loan forgiveness plan was announced in the weeks leading up to the 2022 midterm elections and drew at least seven lawsuits arguing that the move was illegal. It was blocked by a judge just days after the election ended and overturned by the high court the next summer.
Kobach’s appears to be the first major lawsuit to challenge the legality of the SAVE program.
