Florida Republican, Democrat team up to tackle student loan debt as Biden-Harris forgiveness bids derail

A seemingly unlikely duo is pushing for Congress to do something about ballooning college debt that’s plaguing millions of Americans.

Reps. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., introduced a bill to cap federal student loan interest at 3% this week, and Luna told Fox News Digital that she’s already gearing up to lobby Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for a House-wide vote.

"I actually fully anticipate having that conversation in person when we return next week," Luna said.

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Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Jared Moskowitz are engaged in serious bipartisan talks to get a bill to limit federal student loan debt interest. (Getty Images)

She wants Johnson to fast-track the bill under a procedure known as "suspension of the rules," which allows legislation to bypass the normal committee process in exchange for raising the threshold for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds – which both Luna and Moskowitz anticipated the bill would see.

"I think this would pass if you put this to the floor. In fact, if you bypass committee, I think this would probably get two-thirds. I mean, I think it would pass overwhelmingly," Moskowitz told Fox News Digital.

Luna similarly said, "I think it would be really hard for any member to vote against it."

She also suggested creating a discharge petition for the bill – a measure that would force a piece of legislation up for a vote if the petition got a majority of House lawmakers’ signatures. 

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Discharge petitions rarely, if ever, succeed in forcing a House-wide vote themselves, but Luna said that just the creation of one could be enough to pressure leadership into action.

"I talk to people that are just like, ‘I am literally paying off loans from 15, 20 years ago, and because the interest rate is so high, we're not even able to make a dent," Luna said. "It's turning Americans into indentured servants."

President Biden has tried to implement broad student loan forgiveness multiple times. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

It comes after the Biden-Harris administration's multiple attempts at mass student loan forgiveness keep getting blocked by GOP-led states and even the conservative-leaning Supreme Court. President Biden has managed to implement more narrowly targeted forgiveness measures, however.

And while Luna and Moskowitz’s opinions on Biden’s initiative differ, both said they have heard people on both sides of the aisle express a need for reform to the student debt system.

"Quite frankly, we both, we both were working on this issue in a silo, and then in a conversation one day, we both brought it up," Moskowitz said of how their partnership on the issue came about. 

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"Everybody knows it’s a problem. . . . Let’s start here, where we have some common ground, where people who can’t afford an education can go get a loan, but they won’t be saddled with debt for the rest of their lives."

Both also dismissed concerns about giving each other’s side a win during the hyper-partisan environment of an election year.

"I can't be concerned about that, because at the end of the day, if we're going to make progress for the American family, I'm not interested in this credit nonsense," Moskowitz said. "If I'm out there criticizing Republicans who wanted to deny Joe Biden a win on something, I can't then partake in that behavior myself, right?"

Both lawmakers said college and university debt is a bipartisan issue. (Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Luna said, "Ultimately, we as a country will take a win."

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"I know that we're in an election year, and I will say that I wish, and I hope that [Democrats] will look at this legislation not like it's being drawn from, and passed by, the Republican body, but that, you know, it's something that would be a net positive," she said.

At of the end of 2023, roughly 43 million Americans shared the burden of some $1.6 trillion student loan debt in the country, according to federal data.

Nearly 95% of that debt is in federal loans, according to the Education Data Initiative, which also cited the average federal student loan interest rate as 5.99%.