EAST ST. LOUIS – U.S. Senators and Representatives who excluded white farmers from a debt forgiveness program last year repealed the exclusion when they passed the inflation bill President Biden signed on Aug. 16.
Chief U.S. District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel, who presides over an exclusion suit, received notice from assistant attorney general Brian Boynton on Aug. 17.
“In the government’s view, this repeal moots the claims in the case and deprives the court of ongoing jurisdiction,” Boynton wrote.
Rosenstengel stayed summary judgment motions on Aug. 18, and set an Aug. 23 deadline for a joint report about next steps.
District Judge Reed O’Connor of Forth Worth, Texas, who presides over a class action, didn’t receive notice but expected repeal.
A week earlier, a party in his court had advised him that Senators voted for it and Representatives expected to vote for it.
Congress passed the debt forgiveness program as Section 1005 of a virus bill.
For farmers and ranchers in any group but white, Section 1005 would have paid 120 percent of loans that the agriculture department guaranteed.
Texans challenged exclusion first, in Fort Worth, and 11 challenges followed from Tennessee to Wyoming.
Joshua Morton and Matt Morton of Kell sued in the Southern District of Illinois.
O’Connor and other judges issued injunctions against Section 1005 spending, and O’Connor certified plaintiff Sid Miller as class representative.
O’Connor found the agriculture department put forward no evidence of intentional discrimination in at least ten years.
"To find intentional discrimination, then, requires a logical leap as well as a leap back in time," he wrote.
He found government arguments sounded a lot like racial balancing, “something abhorrent to the concept of equal protection.”
He found Section 1005 provided relief to individuals who might never have experienced discrimination or virus hardship.
He found it failed to provide relief to anyone who suffered discrimination but didn’t have a qualifying loan.
He included the Mortons in the class and told them that if they wanted to stay with Rosenstengel they should ask her.
They did and she could’ve tossed the hot potato back to Fort Worth, but she decided last November to hold on to it.
She found it didn’t duplicate the Texas litigation.
She found the Texans alleged civil rights violations and the Mortons alleged violations of the Constitution and the Administrative Procedures Act.
She found dispositive motions in Texas wouldn’t be complete until this April.
She found if she waited for resolution of the Texas action, “a change in the Section 1005 program may moot the Miller litigation.”
"This would not reduce the burden on the court because plaintiffs’ case would not be moot as they seek nominal damages,” she wrote.
Kyla Snow of the Justice Department moved for summary judgment in February, defending exclusion but offering to include white farmers for $36 billion.
She claimed Rosenstengel could enter an order for that much because Congress provided an appropriation with no limit.
She claimed Congress would rather expand the program than abandon it.
Pacific Legal Foundation of Sacramento, counsel to the Mortons, also moved for summary judgment.
After that, nothing happened for half a year except briefing on a side issue.
Boynton’s repeal notice specifically moved to hold summary judgment motions in abeyance, and Rosenstengel granted the motion.