Biden’s Bad Week Just Got Worse: Supreme Court Blocks CDC’s Eviction Ban
Saying that it has not been a good week for President Biden may be the understatement of the year as along with the Supreme Court’s decision to force the administration to reinstate Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ immigration policy, and the terrible situation still unfurling in Afghanistan, The US Supreme Court on Thursday lifted the temporary eviction ban, originally imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for 120 days starting in March 2020, but repeatedly extended first by the Trump administration, then by the Biden administration (which was finally-finally-maybe set to expire on October 3, 2021).
“The Biden Administration is disappointed that the Supreme Court has blocked the most recent CDC eviction moratorium while confirmed cases of the Delta variant are significant across the country,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
“As a result of this ruling, families will face the painful impact of evictions, and communities across the country will face greater risk of exposure to COVID-19.”
As WolfStreet’s Wolf Richter writes below, the Court said in the unsigned opinion that the ban exceeded the CDC’s authority to combat communicable diseases, and that it forced landlords to bear the costs of the pandemic.
The decision was expected (and went 6-3, along ideological lines).
Even President Biden had acknowledged that the CDC’s latest extension of the eviction ban was legally iffy but the litigation would give the government time to distribute $47 billion to make landlords whole and get tenants off the hook.
“The CDC has imposed a nationwide moratorium on evictions in reliance on a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination,” the Court wrote.
“It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts.”
Rest here…
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