WASHINGTON -- When the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan last month, the court indirectly gave Congress an instruction: Be more specific.
But Congress for decades generally has tended to avoid the particulars in sweeping policy bills, whether to avoid politically thorny specifics or to let scientific or financial experts at federal agencies figure out the details of implementing the laws. Lawmakers aren’t likely to change the way they write laws anytime soon to better hold up under Supreme Court scrutiny, lawmakers and experts said.
In the student loan case, handed down last month, the court’s conservative majority styled it as a defense of Congress. They found the Biden administration’s attempt to wipe out $400 billion in student debt had overstepped the bounds of a federal law and usurped the power of Congress to control government spending.
