U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar
Artist: Bill Hennessey
The government’s top Supreme Court lawyer may have saved President Joe Biden’s $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan from what experts considered all-but-certain defeat.
Experts lobbed praise on Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the lawyer who represented the Biden administration in front of the nine justices on Tuesday.
“The Biden administration now seems more likely than not to win the cases,” said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
“Her preparation, poise and power were impressive,” Kantrowitz said.
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In contrast, the attorneys for plaintiffs opposed to the program were less than stellar, Kantrowitz said. “It was like the difference between a star quarterback and two tiddlywinks players,’ he quipped.
University of Chicago Illinois Law Professor Steven Schwinn agreed: “Prelogar knocked it out of the park.”
“I do think she could have influenced or even changed the thinking of two justices, maybe more,” he added.
On Wednesday, Fordham Law professor Jed Shugerman tweeted that he remains “struck by SG Elizabeth Prelogar’s brilliant performance.”
“She may have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat,” Shugerman wrote.
The nine justices considered two legal challenges to President Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for borrowers. Six GOP-led states (Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina) had brought one of the lawsuits, and the other was backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy organization.
Prelogar focused on how the president was acting squarely within the law to avoid borrower distress during national emergencies and refuted that plaintiffs had shown in any way that they’d be harmed by the policy, which is typically a requirement to establish…
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