Politico Playbook: Dems seek to stir up a student debt backlash
July 6, 2023
EUGENE DANIELS, RACHAEL BADE and RYAN LIZZA
STUMPING ON STUDENT DEBT — As challenges to Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 of federal student debt worked their way through the courts, a two-track plan took shape. There was the legal defense, of course, which faced tough odds against a conservative Supreme Court.
But for months, a group of advocates for student loan forgiveness has been organizing a political fight alongside the legal one. Now, with the high court emphatically striking down Biden’s plan, they are launching Protect Borrowers Action, a nonprofit group aimed at unseating House Republicans who have opposed student debt forgiveness.
The 13 members targeted by PBA’s initial $2 million campaign (1) signed an amicus brief urging SCOTUS to strike down Biden’s program, (2) voted to dismantle Biden’s plan using the Congressional Review Act earlier this year, and (3) represent battleground districts.
They include Reps. DON BACON (Neb.), LAUREN BOEBERT (Colo.), KEN CALVERT (Calif.), LORI CHAVEZ-DEREMER (Ore.), ANTHONY D’ESPOSITO (N.Y.), MIKE GARCIA (Calif.), JOHN JAMES (Mich.), KEVIN KILEY (Calif.), NICK LaLOTA, (N.Y.), MIKE LAWLER (N.Y.), SCOTT PERRY (Pa.), MICHELLE STEEL (Calif.) and BRANDON WILLIAMS (N.Y.).
In a digital ad out this morning, a narrator talks over animations and pictures of the Republicans and Supreme Court justices: “They act like we aren’t listening or don’t care. But the joke’s on them. We’re going to make sure they hear from their constituents who they kept drowning in debt.”
The campaign is the first big effort by Democrats to make political hay out of Friday’s decision, and it comes as the party looks to win credit for trying to forgive some student loan debt while deflecting the blame for the plan being blocked onto Republicans and the Supreme Court.
“You have a clear person who is trying to get this done, and you have a clear entity that’s not,” American Federation of Teachers President RANDI WEINGARTEN, who is supporting PBA, told Playbook. “And so I think that we have to fight instead of just complaining about it.”
MIKE PIERCE, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, said the backlash that emerged following last year’s landmark abortion ruling showed it was possible to get voters to mobilize in response to a Supreme Court decision. But, he acknowledged, the student debt forgiveness movement has a lot less practice organizing than the abortion rights movement.
“To sell it to the American people,” he said, “you need to be more political than you do to convince the median Biden White House staffer that what you’re working on is a good idea.”