Student demonstrators camping outside the
Supreme Court
this week would be better off taking a constitutional law class.
They gathered Monday with placards reading, “40 Million Families Need Debt Relief” and “Student Loan Relief is Legal.” It’s a reminder that even before
Twitter
, legal complexities were stripped down to a few unpersuasive syllables to stoke emotions.
SEN. WARREN’S DEBT LIMIT WHOPPER
The demonstrators hoped to influence justices who on Tuesday started hearing arguments over whether President Joe Biden may use the COVID emergency, which he has already declared over, to forgive $500 billion-$1 trillion of debt incurred by people who vote for him.
He argues that he can transfer this massive liability from voluntary borrowers to taxpayers under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, which Congress passed in 2003 so military men and women would not be burdened with repayment worries while fighting for America in Iraq.
The use of this law today to forgive student loans is a massive overreach of a sort that federal courts have already repeatedly reversed when attempted by this arrogant administration. Both the president and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed before it became inconvenient to do so that it needed legislation.
The HEROES Act refers vaguely to “emergencies,” and this is what Biden’s lawyers are hanging their case on. But everyone, including Biden, knows that there is no emergency, that borrowers are not being harmed, and that they are not fighting for their country but for themselves.
I suspect Biden’s flimsy case will be thrown out, but whatever the result, the sight of demonstrators at the court is, as always, somewhat dismaying. This is not mainly because their argument is pitifully weak, amounting simply to keep their money to buy homes with rather than having to repay it as originally agreed. No, it is dismaying mostly because the argument is a political one, not a legal one, and the court is not supposed to arbitrate political debates. It exists to rule not on whether a law is good or bad, but on whether disputed actions fall within the scope of relevant statutes and the Constitution.
By their presence on the Supreme Court steps, demonstrators show that they either don’t know or don’t care what the justices are properly for. Their action begs the question, assuming justices should ponder whether student loan forgiveness is a good thing or a bad thing. They are uninterested in the proper functioning of the constitutional republic. They just want the dosh.
The men and women in black robes are appointed not to decide whether forgiving hundreds of billions of dollars in debt would benefit the economy by releasing debtors from obligations and thus allowing them to purchase houses and apartments. They are not there to weigh economic costs and benefits, nor indeed to consider “racial justice,” which is another shibboleth cited by the demonstrators.
None of that is any of the Supreme Court’s business.
The last thing justices should do is pay any attention to people carrying placards and shouting slogans. That is for elected politicians — the president and members of Congress — to do, to debate, and to present to voters in their election campaigns.
Fortunately, the guiding judicial philosophy of six of the nine justices recognizes the separation of powers. It is, indeed, both the best and the most controversial thing about them as originalists and textualists. It is why Democrats and the Left so hate them. It is why they were, in several instances, endorsed by the Federalist Society and were chosen by Republican presidents.
They do not believe in a “living Constitution,” a euphemism given by the Left to the arrogant idea that judges should alter the meaning of the law and the Constitution according to their hunches about what would be popular.
Polls suggest that 53% of Americans approve of student loan forgiveness and 43% oppose it. If that is so, it should surely be possible for Democrats to win elections arguing for it. But the party of the Left is impatient with proper procedures and always wants to cut to the chase — to get to the result without bothering with the constitutional niceties.
What they and demonstrators outside the Supreme Court should realize is that democracy is all about process, not results. That sounds boring but is essential. Democracy can arrive at left-wing results and right-wing results, so it is not about ends. It is about means. It is about how the decisions are made.
Demanding that unelected judges grant $1 trillion of loan forgiveness because “40 million families need” it is not the way democracy is done.
