US supreme court blocks Biden’s eviction moratorium

The US supreme court’s conservative majority is allowing evictions to resume across the United States, blocking the Biden administration from enforcing a temporary ban that was put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The court’s action ends protections for roughly 3.5 million people in the United States who said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to Census Bureau data from early August.

The court said late Thursday in an unsigned opinion that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which reimposed the moratorium 3 August, lacked the authority to do so under federal law without explicit congressional authorization.

The justices rejected the administration’s arguments in support of the CDC’s authority.

“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” the court wrote.

The three liberal justices dissented. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the three, pointed to the increase in Covid-19 caused by the delta variant as one of the reasons the court should have left the moratorium in place.

“The public interest strongly favors respecting the CDC’s judgment at this moment, when over 90% of counties are experiencing high transmission rates,” Breyer wrote.

Cori Bush, a Democratic congresswoman representing Missouri who had camped outside the Capitol as the eviction moratorium expired at the end of last month, said Congress must act to reinstate the protections.

“We are in an unprecedented and ongoing crisis that demands compassionate solutions that center the needs of the people and communities most in need of our help. We need to give our communities time to heal from this devastating pandemic,” she said in a statement.

“We didn’t sleep on those steps just to give up now. Congress must act immediately to prevent mass evictions.”

It was the second loss for the administration this week at the hands of the high court’s conservative majority.

On Tuesday, the court effectively allowed the reinstatement of a Trump-era policy forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings.

The new administration had tried to end the Remain in Mexico program, as it is informally known.

On evictions, Joe Biden acknowledged the legal headwinds the new moratorium would likely encounter. But the US president said that even with doubts about what courts would do, it was worth a try because it would buy at least a few weeks of time for the distribution of more of the $46.5bn in rental assistance Congress had approved.

The treasury department said Wednesday that the pace of distribution has increased and nearly a million households have been helped. But only about 11% of the money, just over $5bn, has been distributed by state and local governments, the department said.

On Thursday evening after the ruling, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, issued a statement, saying: “President Biden is once again calling on all entities that can prevent evictions – from cities and states to local courts, landlords, cabinet agencies – to urgently act to prevent evictions.”

A handful of states, including California, Maryland and New Jersey, have put in place their own temporary bans on evictions. In a separate order earlier this month, the high court ended some protections for New York residents who had fallen behind on their rents during the pandemic.

New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, tweeted on Thursday night about the supreme court: “A group of right wing extremists just decided to throw families out of their homes during a global pandemic. This is an attack on working people across our country and city. New York won’t stand for this vile, unjust decision.”

A statement from the office of the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said: “California renters will NOT be impacted by this news, the state’s eviction moratorium remains in effect. We’re focused on ensuring tenants and small landlords get the rent relief they need under California’s renter assistance program, the largest in the country.”