The Supreme Court Caused the Looming Eviction Disaster. Why Won't Democrats Say So?
On July 31, the federal governments eviction moratorium expired, potentially forcing millions of Americans out of their homes during yet another COVID surge. In the days before the eviction cliff, House Democrats attempted to extend the moratorium, but Republicans easily blocked their measure. Democratic lawmakers then spent the weekend arguing over who was to blame for the looming catastrophe.
Curiously, most Democrats chose not to focus on the primary culprit: the Supreme Court. In late June, five conservative justices signaled that they would not let the White House extend the eviction ban beyond July 31 absent further congressional authorization. These Republican-appointed justices set the terms of the debate, yet were largely absent from Democrats blame game. As a result, most vulnerable Americans will likely not understand they face homelessness in a pandemic because of SCOTUS. This strange dynamic is symptomatic of a deeper pathology in contemporary American politics: Democrats appear incapable of explaining how the Supreme Court stymies their own agendaand the resulting confusion shields the court from criticism, consequences, and accountability when its decisions wreak havoc.
When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Biden to extend the eviction moratorium on his own, she framed the issue as a matter of morality. But the presidents inaction was almost certainly a legal calculation. To understand his hesitation, its key to remember that the recently expired moratorium was not the same policy that had been in effect since the start of the pandemic. Congress passed its first eviction ban in March 2020, explicitly prohibiting landlords from kicking out tenants who could not afford rent because of the pandemic. After this provision expired that August, Donald Trump issued an executive order asking the CDC to take action. The CDC responded in September with its own eviction moratorium set to run through the end of 2020. It was rooted in a federal law that allows the agency to make and enforce such regulations that are necessary to prevent the spread of communicable diseases between states. In December, Congress passed legislation that explicitly extended the CDCs moratorium through Jan. 31, 2021. The agency then extended the ban several more times.
While the CDC kept the moratorium in place, a group of landlords sued to block it, claiming it exceeded the agencys authority. On May 5, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich sided with the plaintiffs against the ban but stayed her order. One month later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit court refused to block the ban. The plaintiffs then appealed to SCOTUS, which came within an inch of ending the moratorium. Five justicesClarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrettbelieved it violated the law. But Kavanaugh, who cast the decisive fifth vote, wrote separately to explain that although he believed the CDC had exceeded its existing statutory authority, he would not invalidate the ban. Instead, weighing the balance of equities, he would allow it to remain for a few weeks.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-supreme-court-caused-the-looming-eviction-disaster-why-wont-democrats-say-so/ar-AAMRdht?ocid=DELLDHP&li=BBnb7Kz
elleng
(130,732 posts)with lack of clarity; seems it's a legal question.