The “conservative majority” Supreme Court of the United States has been a big let down for the most part.
President Trump may have appointed three conservative justices onto the highest court in the land, but they haven’t always come down on the conservative side of issues.
But its recent decision to reverse Biden’s eviction moratorium is a spark of hope for those who have wondered whether the SCOTUS will ever do its job again.
The nation’s highest court ruled that any further extensions of the moratorium must be passed by Congress. The court’s eight-page opinion sided with landlords who disagree that the Centers for Disease Control has the authority to determine whether landlords can legally evict tenants for nonpayment of rent due to the financial effects of the virus.
BREAKING 6-3 #SCOTUS strikes down latest Biden administration eviction ban. Justice Breyer dissents, joined by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor.
Court:
“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it.”— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) August 27, 2021
Predictably, the Supreme Court’s liberal justices — Kagan, Breyer and Sotomayor — dissented. The White House’s response was to urge any entities with the ability to stop evictions to do so.
“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 late Thursday. “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. In light of the Supreme Court ruling and the continued risk of COVID-19 transmission, 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.”
With tenants owing over $20 billion in unpaid rent, middle-class landlords are experiencing the worst hardships. Only a small portion of the funds set aside to assist those landlords has been distributed.
This is the second SCOTUS ruling in recent times to reverse decisions made by the Biden administration. The court also ruled that President Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy must be put into place once again as the border crisis is overshadowed by the Afghanistan debacle.