State of the Union: Interview With Rep. Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez (D-NY)

Interview

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What the court was also ruling on was with respect to the HEROES Act.

But our response is very strong, in that Congress has given the president that authority in the Higher Education Act. The president very squarely has as well, using his secretary of education, the ability to cancel student loans.

But, as we have seen, not just in what we saw ruled from the majority, but even in the minority dissent written around these cases, we have justices saying that the Supreme Court is going, themselves, much too far. They are expanding their role into acting as though they are Congress itself.

And that, I believe, is an expansion of power that we really must be focusing on, the danger of this court and the abuse of power in this court, particularly as it -- particularly as it is related to the entanglements around conflicts of interest as well.

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Yes, I believe that there are several steps that we should be considering as well to go a step beyond.

I would like to see interest payments suspended during this time, especially during that 12-month ramp-up period. There are millions of people in this country that have student loan debt under -- student loan debt amounts under $10,000 or $20,000, as outlined in the plan.

People should not be incurring interest during this 12-month on-ramp period. So, I highly urge the administration to consider suspending those interest payments. Of course, we still believe in pursuing student loan cancellation and acting faster than that 12-month period wherever possible.

What we -- we have been really articulating this plan using the Higher Education administration -- the Higher Education Act for some time. Myself, as well as other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, met with the White House recently around this plan, as well as many other advocates in the space as well.

And we truly believe that the president -- Congress has given the president this authority. The Supreme Court is far overreaching their authority. And I believe, frankly, that we really need to be having conversations about judicial review as a check on the courts as well.

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I mean, what Justice Clarence Thomas wrote there, I believe, is profoundly disrespectful to -- to -- I just think it was profoundly disrespectful to his colleague.

It includes sweeping assumptions about her world view, whereas, when you look at what -- what the response was from Justice Ketanji Brown, we saw that her dissent was grounded in fact. It was grounded in the facts of the case. It did not disparage Clarence Thomas' overall world view, but, as a matter of fact, a nuanced critique of his analysis of the fact of the case.

But for him to come out and insinuate that her opinion is due to some sort of inferior or less than -- less than really thought out of a stance, I think it's profoundly insulting. And I think that he really demonstrated his character, frankly, and his world view in that critique himself.

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I truly do. And this is not a new development in history. This is part of our system of checks and balances.

The courts, if they were to proceed without any check on their power, without any balance on their power, then we will start to see an undemocratic and, frankly, dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court, which is what we are seeing now, from the overturning of abortion rights, to the ruling that discrimination and, frankly, stripping the full personhood and dignity of LGBTQ people in the United States.

This is -- these are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep towards authoritarianism and centralization of power in the court. In fact, we have members of the court themselves, with Justice Elena Kagan, saying that the court is beginning to assume the power of a legislature.

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And, right now, whether it is expansion of the court...

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Yes.

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Well, there are several ways.

First, we have a Senate Judiciary Committee that is beginning the process of investigating the entanglements and conflicts of interest. Just one to two weeks before the student loan ruling, the country learned that Justice Samuel Alito was accepting gifts from billionaires who were lobbying against Supreme Court -- forgive -- or that were lobbying the Supreme Court against student loan forgiveness.

Just weeks before, we learned that he was accepting gifts from them and travel and vacations from them before he decided to vote and rule in their favor.

And so I believe that if Justice -- if Chief John Roberts will not come before Congress for an investigation voluntarily, I believe that we should be considering subpoenas. We should be considering investigations. We must pass much more binding and stringent ethics guidelines where we see members of Congress -- where we see members of the Supreme Court potentially breaking the law, as we saw in the refusal with Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases implicating his wife in January 6.

There also must be impeachment on the table. We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach, and abuse of power. And the Supreme Court has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy.

And, in the process, they themselves have been destroying the legitimacy of the court, which is profoundly dangerous for our entire democracy.

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Of course. Thank you.

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