The Supreme Court’s Friday rulings, which included blows to President Biden’s student debt relief plan and LGBTQ rights, lit a firestorm on Capitol Hill, with Democrats decrying the decisions as “cruelty” and a step backwards and Republicans celebrating the rulings as lawful wins.
The verdicts, which came on the final decision day of the Supreme Court’s term, capped off a contentious period for the bench, which included controversial opinions, ethics scandals involving two justices and calls for court reform on Capitol Hill.
Democrats highlighted those three dynamics on Friday, ripping the court for the latest rulings and suggesting hypocrisy on the part of the justices.
“After a multi-decade, special interest-funded effort to reshape the federal judiciary, the fanatical MAGA right have captured the Supreme Court and achieved dangerous, regressive policies that they could never attain at the ballot box,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
“This MAGA-captured Supreme Court feels free to accept lavish gifts and vacations from their powerful, big-monied friends, all while they refuse to help everyday Americans,” he continued. “The ill-founded and disappointing decisions from the Supreme Court are a stark reminder that it will take a sustained effort to rebalance our federal courts and restore the values that have made the United States a beacon for freedom, democracy, equality, and opportunity.”
But Republicans hailed the work of the court, led by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts.
“I have never been prouder of Roberts Court,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote on Twitter. “The Supreme Court is truly standing up for individual constitutional rights and limited government.”
In one of the most anticipated rulings this term, the bench struck down the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan in a 6-3 decision, handing a defeat to one of the president’s top initiatives and ending months of speculation regarding whether or not the high court would allow the proposal to proceed.
The conservative justices, led by Roberts, concluded that Congress did not authorize the executive branch to forgive the student loan debts, which was estimated to be hundreds of billions of dollars.
Democrats slammed the decision on Friday, arguing that it would further hinder Americans who are struggling financially.
“Americans across the country are struggling to purchase a home, start a family, begin a small business and save for retirement because they are saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “The extreme, right-wing Supreme Court decision puts an anchor around the aspirations of millions of young Americans.”
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) called the decision “cruelty.”
“The cruelty of this Supreme Court knows no bounds,” she wrote on Twitter. “At a time when Americans are struggling to make ends meet, they take away the relief provided to millions of student loan borrowers.”
Some Democrats zeroed in on the impact Friday’s decision would have on Black Americans. According to the Education Data Initiative, Black and African American college graduates carry an average of $25,000 more in student loan debt compared to white individuals who graduate college.
The student loans ruling came one day after the Supreme Court gutted affirmative action programs in higher education.
“Today, after a devastating ruling gutting affirmative action, the Supreme Court is standing in the way of life-changing student debt cancellation, a kitchen table issue and one that is deeply personal for millions of Black families across America,” members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote in a statement.
Republicans, on the other hand, went after Biden following Friday’s decision, arguing that the president misused his executive powers when he announced the student loan forgiveness plan.
“The President of the United States cannot hijack twenty-year-old emergency powers to pad the pockets of his high-earning base and make suckers out of working families who choose not to take on student debt,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wrote in a statement. “The Court’s decision today deals a heavy blow to Democrats’ distorted and outsized view of executive power.”
“Anyone frustrated by today’s decision should direct their complaints to the White House, where they knew this executive order would likely be struck down by the courts but did nothing whatsoever to meaningfully address exorbitant costs in higher education,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) echoed.
GOP lawmakers were also quick to point out a part of Roberts’ majority opinion that quoted Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). When she was Speaker in 2021, Pelosi declared during a press conference that Biden “does not” have “the power for debt forgiveness.”
Republicans ribbed Pelosi over the statement on Friday.
“The Court called out Pelosi in its decision,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) wrote on Twitter, quoting the Pelosi portion.
“I agree with her for once!” he added.
The other decision handed down on Friday delivered a defeat to the LGBTQ equality movement, with the six conservative justices ruling that Colorado cannot require an evangelical Christian web designer to create same-sex wedding websites. The majority opinion — delivered on the last day of Pride Month — said the state’s anti-discrimination law violates the web designer’s free speech.
“This is a devastating ruling for the LGBTQ+ community,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who is openly gay, told MSNBC during an interview. “We just spent a month celebrating, trying to uplight pride. Already a very dark time for this community where you have attacks happening on our community every day in Congress, in state legislatures, and to have this happen by a true extreme, activist court, to roll back a key protection against discriminating [against] our community, is shameful.”
“I think this is a very dark day for our community,” he added.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the first openly LGBTQ person to serve in the chamber, called Friday’s ruling “a step backward in our fight to live up to our nation’s ideal of equality.”
“This is about fairness and freedom — about whether LGBTQ+ Americans deserve fairness and freedom to be treated just like everyone else,” she wrote in a statement. “It is simply wrong to discriminate against any American based on who they are or who they love, and Americans agree.”
Reaction to the ruling from Republicans, however, was more muted. While some conservative GOP lawmakers hailed the decision as a First Amendment victory — Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) wrote “Amen” — and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said the ruling “ensured no one is forced to say what they don’t believe — top Republicans in both chambers remained silent.