Amicus Briefs
Missouri v. Trump (f/k/a Missouri v. Biden)
CASE SUMMARY
NCLA called for upholding a preliminary injunction against the Biden Department of Education’s “SAVE” plan. The Biden Administration plan rewrote the 1993 amendments to the Higher Education Act (HEA) to transform student-loan-repayment plans Congress authorized into loan-cancellation plans Congress did not authorize at a $475 billion cost to taxpayers.
The preliminary injunction by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit expanded a district court order to block all components of the SAVE plan, which exceeds the Secretary of Education’s authority under the 1993 HEA amendments. The 1993 law states that “income contingent repayment shall be based on the [borrower’s] adjusted gross income,” and would “not … exceed 25 years.” The Department claimed this language allows it to enact SAVE, an income-contingent repayment plan with monthly payments so low that very little would be repaid by the end of the repayment period, at which point the substantial remaining balance would be cancelled.
Nothing in the 1993 amendments’ text or legislative history suggests Congress granted the Department discretion to design plans like SAVE that cancel loans instead of requiring their repayment. If the 1993 law did grant such power, it would unconstitutionally delegate legislative power, as it contains no intelligible principle to guide the Department’s discretion of how generous to make repayment plans.
In February 2025, the Eighth Circuit upheld and expanded the injunction to block the entire SAVE Plan, a victory for NCLA.
OUR TEAM
RELEVANT MATERIALS
NCLA FILINGS
Opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
February 18, 2025 | Read More
Amici Curiae Brief of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, the Cato Institute, and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Support Plaintiffs-Appellees
October 1, 2024 | Read More
Amicus Curiae Brief of the New Civil Liberties Alliance in Opposition to Applicants’ Request to Vacate the Injunction
August 19, 2024 | Read More