Late on Thursday, the Supreme Court predictably ended the CDC’s eviction moratorium. Slumber party organizer Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) is very upset. The sacrifice she made to shame President Biden into renewing an unconstitutional mandate was not effective in swaying SCOTUS to uphold it:
We were outside the Capitol for 5 days. Rain. Heat. Cold.
If they think this partisan ruling is going to stop us from fighting to keep people housed, they’re wrong.
Congress needs to act immediately. For every unhoused or soon to be unhoused person in our districts. https://t.co/Boi3rUaZ4Y
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) August 27, 2021
If you don’t recall, Bush and a few dozen fellow communists slept on the Capitol steps for a few days when the previous moratorium was set to expire. She and the “squad” were trying to get the House to reconvene to take legislative action to ban rent.
We’re still here. We have to reconvene the House and vote to reinstate the eviction moratorium to put an end to the eviction emergency.
11 million lives and livelihoods are on the line. pic.twitter.com/qUJIebTkSg
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) August 1, 2021
The Senate was still in session passing the garbage “infrastructure” bill, and several aging Democrats desperate to appeal to the far-left base of their party stopped by for photo-ops. Bush’s Twitter timeline is full of smiling selfies in full makeup. There is a selfie of her with an umbrella on an evening when it might have been sprinkling. The rain was not torrential by any standard. And the temperatures were in the low 80s to 90s during the day and the high 60s to low 70s at night. On the East Coast, we call that an average summer. Maybe it is different in Missouri.
The initial White House response to calls from Bush and the rest of their radical left-wing caucus to extend the prohibition on collecting rent was correct. “Given the recent spread of the delta variant, including among those Americans both most likely to face evictions and lacking vaccinations, President Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the CDC to further extend this eviction moratorium to protect renters at this moment of heightened vulnerability,” the White House said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made clear that this option is no longer available.”
Unfortunately, Biden reversed course after the slumber parties. When he ordered the CDC to extend the moratorium, he acknowledged it was a Hail Mary. When asked about the previous statement from the Court, he responded, “By the time it gets litigated, it will probably give some additional time.” In other words, the administration would continue doing this illegal thing until the Court stopped them from doing it. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court agreed with Biden’s original assessment and ended the moratorium.
The real problem with the SCOTUS decision is that it was not 9-0 in favor of ending the moratorium. The CDC has no authority to govern real estate contracts. The agency did not have the power to make nationwide orders during the pandemic for virus mitigation strategies. It made recommendations, and that is all that should have happened here. If Bush wants to complain about politicized opinions, she should note that the three liberal justices caved to political pressure. The other six justices ruled in favor of fundamental private property rights.
Further, Congress authorized nearly $50 billion in rental relief in COVID relief bills during 2020 and 2021. Delayed distribution is a problem, and maybe that is something Bush could work on. Housing is not free, and even an act of Congress cannot require people to allow squatters to stay on their property. As Biden noted, it might take some time to litigate, but even a new law is not likely to stand.
Related: Bureaucratic Lunacy Creates a Nightmare for Those Facing Eviction
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