The majority then announced, with an opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts, that it was overthrowing the student loan forgiveness program, granting a request from six Republican state attorneys general on behalf of a loan servicer, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, that did not want to be used as a plaintiff. Without MOHELA, the states did not have standing to bring the suit—they are not directly harmed.
Roberts and the majority weren’t going to be bothered by the fact that their plaintiff was an unwilling participant in this highly partisan scheme. “By law and function, MOHELA is an instrumentality of Missouri … The [debt forgiveness] plan will cut MOHELA’s revenues, impairing its efforts to aid Missouri college students,” Roberts wrote. “This acknowledged harm to MOHELA in the performance of its public function is necessarily a direct injury to Missouri itself.”
Never mind that in oral arguments the state admitted that MOHELA wasn’t aiding Missouri college students because it hadn’t paid into that fund in 15 years, and “said in its own financial documents that it doesn’t plan to make any payments in the future.”
@dankapotamus I disagree - while there’s certainly deadlock on the federal level, your vote absolutely matters, especially when it comes to state and local politics. Take a look at the states that have democratic super-majorities. Best example of progress in action is in Minnesota right now.
That being said, speaking to your larger point, I think that if ranked-choice voting were implemented, we’d have a much more effective democratic process that would allow protest votes that didn’t directly harm your best interests. Sadly, given the state of American politics, if you make under $150k a year or are a member of any minority group, if you don’t vote Democratic, you’re voting against your own interests.