Senate Passage of Defense Bill Pushed Back until November
The annual defense authorization bill will be on the Senate floor next week, but only for some procedural moves to set up a full debate on the measure in November. The legislation—which includes a host of pay authorizations and new program starts—is considered a must-pass measure by lawmakers each year and has advanced out of Congress for more than 60 years. In July, House lawmakers advanced plans for an $840 billion authorization bill that included spending plans above the White House’s budget request to cover inflation costs, new equipment purchases and additional support for Ukraine. That measure will be brought before the full Senate on Tuesday. But only a few senators are expected to be in the chamber when that happens. ( DefenseNews - Oct. 6, 2022)
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Latest ‘Dreamers’ Court Ruling Prompts Calls for Senate to Act
Advocates have turned up the pressure on the Senate to pass legislation this year to establish a citizenship path for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, after a federal appeals court dealt yet another blow to the program that for now protects those so-called Dreamers. But with the status quo unchanged for current recipients of the program, the ruling may still not be enough to prompt at least 10 Republican senators to strike a deal with Democrats and pass a bill in the dwindling weeks of this legislative calendar. But court rulings, including a decision Wednesday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, have continued to leave protections from deportation in place for Dreamers. That has weakened incentives for Congress to act in the politically fraught area of immigration, where partisan divides have thwarted any substantive changes to law in decades. Advocates are currently eyeing the lame-duck period after midterm elections as their best chance to push through legislation. ( Roll Call - Oct. 6, 2022)
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Blanket Transcript-withholding Policies Are ‘Abusive,’ Federal Agency Says
Blanket policies to withhold academic transcripts from students with outstanding loan debt to colleges are “abusive under the Consumer Financial Protection Act,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found last week. Colleges should end the practice, the agency wrote in a news release on new guidance for federal investigators. The bureau found that transcript holds because of a student’s overdue loan payments are a coercive practice with consequences that are “often disproportionate” to the student’s original debt. When students can’t get their transcripts, they are often unable to transfer to a different institution, get a job certification, or seek employment in a field that requires academic transcripts. Until recently, transcript holds were a nearly universal practice in higher education. The U.S. Department of Education has largely declined to address the topic, a response some advocates described as “lukewarm.” ( The Chronicle of Higher Education - Oct. 6, 2022)
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Biden Student Loan Relief Rollout Imperiled by Court Challenges
The US Department of Education is slated to launch its application for student loan forgiveness later this month, but a growing list of legal challenges could threaten the program’s rollout. Five separate lawsuits in courts across the country seek to block the plan, arguing that the president overstepped his executive power by authorizing such large-scale debt relief without congressional approval. Biden’s student loan plan relies on a 2003 law that allows the Education Department to waive loan requirements to support borrowers in an emergency. Congress passed it to help borrowers serving in the military in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Biden declared the Covid-19 pandemic is such an emergency, even as deaths and infection rates fall significantly. For opponents of the plan, the first hurdle will be proving in court that it will harm them in a concrete way —not whether Biden has the power to forgive billions of dollars in student debt. ( Bloomberg - Oct. 7, 2022)
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Nebraska’s Ben Sasse Plans to Resign from Senate for University Post
Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, plans to leave the Senate by the end of the year to become president of the University of Florida, after a presidential search committee for the state’s flagship university announced on Thursday that he was the sole finalist for the post. Mr. Sasse, who voted with six other Republican senators to convict President Donald J. Trump on impeachment charges following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, and has harshly criticized his own party for backing Mr. Trump, was re-elected to his second term in 2020 and was not set to be on the ballot again until 2026. But his academic background evidently was a draw for the group seeking a replacement for Kent Fuchs, the current University of Florida president, who is returning to teaching as the campus has been roiled by disputes over academic freedom. ( The New York Times - Oct. 6, 2022)
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