A day after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments over the legality of President Joe Biden plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt, his administration on Friday asked the justices to put on hold a judge’s ruling in a separate case that found the program unlawful.
Rulings by lower courts in two challenges filed against the debt relief program have put Biden’s policy on ice.
The administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to pause Texas-based U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman’s decision in a challenge backed by a conservative advocacy group or to hear arguments on the merits of the case at the same time that it tackles a challenge pursued by six mostly Republican-led states.
Pittman issued his ruling on Nov. 10. The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its injunction on Nov. 14 in a lawsuit in which Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina have argued that the administration overstepped its authority.
The justices on Thursday did not act on Biden’s request to immediately lift the 8th Circuit’s injunction but fast-tracked the case for oral arguments in late February or early March.
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