I'm Virginia Allen, I'm Samantha Sharis, and this is the Daily Civil Top News for Friday, June 30th.

Here are today's headlines.

The Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan today.

The nation's highest court heard arguments in February in the two cases, Biden vs. Nebraska and Department of Education vs. Brown.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion in Biden vs. Nebraska 6-3 striking down Biden's plan, the court unanimously denied standing in the brown case.

Also earlier today, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Colorado cannot force graphic designer Lori Smith to create art that violates her religious beliefs.

The Smith vote was 6-3 with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice's Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Lito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett ruling that the government cannot campaign speech.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent, joined by Justice's Elena Kagan and Katangi Brown Jackson.

Joining us in the studio to further discuss these two cases is Tom Chipping, a senior legal fellow here at the Heritage Foundation.

Tom, thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

So as I mentioned, Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion in the Biden vs. Nebraska case.

Can you tell us a little bit more about what he said and just give a general overview of the rulings?

Sure, Congress created back in 1965 a student loan system that provides different kinds of student loans.

And in 2003, they passed what the acronym is the Heroes Act.

I worked in the Senate for 15 years and I know they try real hard to come up with acronyms and most of the time they don't work really well.

But this one, the bill is called the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act.

Basically, what it was supposed to do is after Operation Desert Storm and after 9-11, it was supposed to allow the Secretary of Education to make some adjustments.

Adjustments are allowances so that members of the military would not fall behind on their student loans.

It was a very specific law.

And suddenly in August 2022, last year, the Secretary of Education announces that they're going to use that law that was intended for the military in cases of states of emergency to forgive student loans for 43 million Americans.

Totaling $430 billion.

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