Progressive House Candidate Jumps In On Student Debt Cancellation
It's a matter of racial and class justice, Nina Turner says
This week saw an unusual break develop between the two top Democrats on Capitol Hill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), usually work in close unanimity — at least in public — so it was a bit remarkable that the pair found themselves in public disagreement over the matter of President Biden cancelling $50,000 of student loan debt across the board for all Americans.
And it was into this debate that Nina Turner —the progressive Democrat running for her party's nomination for a special election to Ohio's 11th Congressional District — injected herself.
Schumer has, for several months now, been active in a pressure campaign popular with progressives to push Biden to cancel student loan debt at the $50,000 level.
Biden has demurred and indicated that — if he were to act at all — it would be to relieve student loan debt closer to the $10,000 level.
Pelosi publicly broke with Schumer and other progressives advocating for the higher level of debt cancellation.
She said that Biden simply doesn't have the executive power to take such a step; only Congress can. Others, however, believe that Biden does have executive power to do so.
So it was into this debate that Turner, a longtime and prominent activist and former state legislator, stepped this week out on the campaign trail looking to fill the seat left vacant when Biden nominated then-Rep Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) to become secretary of housing and urban development.
“Standing up in the wealthiest country in the world to say, 'We can — and we must — cancel student debt.’ We know it's the right thing to do,” she said. “There’s a racial justice element to it; there's a class justice element to it. And, guess what? It can be done right now.”
In addition, Turner advocates for free tuition for those students attending public colleges and universities.
Early voting in the primary to nab the nomination for Fudge's former seat is already underway.
Election Day for the special primary election is set for Tuesday.
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