A federal judge, on Thursday, put the nail in the coffin of President Joe Biden’s student debt transfer program. Quoting Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and declaring that the program violates fundamental safeguards of liberty in the Constitution, the presiding Judge stated that-
-[Americans] “are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone.”
-Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas
Filing one of the challenges to Biden’s $400 billion vote-buying program, with voters ages 18–29, (the only age bracket to shift in Democrats’ favor this election cycle), Job Creators Network (JCN), won their challenge in court with Judge Pittman’s ruling.
In his 26-page decision, Pittman began - “The Constitution vests all legislative powers in Congress,” quoting Article I of the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson on the first page of his decision. The judge explained that, foundational to the constitutional freedoms of American citizens, the Constitution’s separation of powers, giving different powers to Congress, the president, and the courts, provides the system of checks and balances in the law that are the hallmark of our freedoms.
And on the second page, the judge quoted Nancy Pelosi, the apparent outgoing Speaker of the House, highlighting that, even a liberal Democrat leader recognizes that the Constitution’s structural safeguards cannot be violated, saying-
“People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness… He does not,” [said Pelosi in July, dutifully quoted by the federal judge. The Speaker continued,] “He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power. That has to be [accomplished through] an act of Congress.”
-Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas
The latest in a series of legal cases, demonstrating the legal prowess, of D.C. legal power player Karen Harned, with her knack for picking top law firms to team up with for strategic litigation, this case is another victory to her credit. Now at JCN, Harned tapped Michael Connelly of the firm Consovoy McCarthy, to tackle Biden’s transfer of student debt from college students to other Americans, in Brown v. Department of Education. They brought the case in one of the most conservative judicial districts in America, the Northern District of Texas, where it will now go on appeal to the most conservative federal appeals court, the Fifth Circuit.
Agreeing with JCN’s arguments as to why the federal law did not give Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona the sweeping power they claimed, Pittman it seems appreciated Connelly’s specific flagging of Pelosi’s comments, which were brought to his attention. Pittman stated-
“Under our system of government, public policy is typically made by the Congress through a negotiated-and-reasoned process among the members, with input from the President,” explaining…, “and based on how Congress legislated, those members would then be held accountable by their constituents each election cycle.”
-Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas
Concluding his order, by explaining the principles of constitutional government at stake in the litigation, Pittman stated-
“This case involves the question of whether Congress—through the HEROES Act—gave the Secretary authority to implement a Program that provides debt forgiveness to millions of student-loan borrowers, totaling over $400 billion. Whether the Program constitutes good public policy is not the role of this Court to determine. Still, no one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States.”
“In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone. Instead, we are ruled by a Constitution that provides for three distinct and independent branches of government. As President James Madison warned, “[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” The Federalist No. 47.
“The Court is not blind to the current political division in our country. But it is fundamental to the survival of our Republic that the separation of powers as outlined in our Constitution be preserved. And having interpreted the HEROES Act, the Court holds that it does not provide “clear congressional authorization” for the Program proposed by the Secretary.”
-Judge Mark Pittman, Brown v. U.S. Department of Education, No. 4:22-cv-908 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Biden’s administration is left now to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which is also as stated, a constitutionally conservative court. It should be interesting, with all the 18-29-year old’s who came out to vote for Biden and the Democrats – how this will now sit. They were essentially promised something financial, that Biden cannot deliver on and likely never will.
Guess those student loan borrowers, will now have to rethink their budgets, for repayment of their own indebtedness, finally assuming the cost of their own decisions. The $400 billion-dollar, socialist re-appropriation bill, it would seem, is dead in the water and those Americans who could have been forced to finance this ridiculous socialist money grab, are decidedly off the hook.
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
-Henry David Thoreau