The CDC's eviction moratorium expired on July 31, and President Biden said at the time that he couldn't legally extend it. A few days later, after a bit of roughing up from progressives, he went ahead and extended it anyway, while warning that it would probably be struck down in court.
Conservatives are outraged, just as they were repeatedly outraged about lots of President Obama's executive actions that they considered illegal.
On the other hand, they remained non-outraged when President Trump, for example, tried to limit travel from Arab countries in ways that were almost certainly illegal. Nor do they seem to have any problem with states passing anti-abortion laws that are plainly unconstitutional. It's only a problem when Democrats do it.
Speaking for myself, I think Biden should have stuck to his guns and accepted the legal advice he got from his own advisors. I know that Trump rarely seemed to care about that, but I don't think we should take Trump as a role model in these things.
That said, taking actions with the intent of having them tested in court is something that presidents of both parties do fairly routinely. If Biden's extension of the eviction moratorium is prima facie illegal, then someone will take it to court and ask for an emergency injunction, which will be granted. If the case isn't that obvious, then a court might take its time. Or it might issue an injunction with a stay. Or maybe it will get an emergency bump to the Supreme Court. Who knows? The point here is that this will be tested in court, and if it's flagrantly illegal it will be stopped quickly. If it's just garden variety illegal, it will be stopped in a few weeks or months. And if it's legal—and it might be!—then it will survive court challenge.
Bottom line: this is not only not an outrage, it's not even that big a deal. The federal court system will handle it just fine.
Figuring out if something is legal is the job of the Court. And on this one, they ducked the issue once already. Will they duck it again? I mean, that opinion by Kavanaugh was just the opposite of "we just call balls and strikes".
Yeah, this is politicking with the Court. Why would Biden be doing that? Ask Merrick Garland.
I should have noted that the time to get alarmed is when someone is ignoring a direct court order. Biden hasn't done that, because the Court hasn't actually ruled. They flirted with it, but they didn't say "no".
No the time to get alarmed is when, for instance, someone has brought a hundred suits alleging wrongdoing in a recent election, and none of them have gone anywhere, but they ignore that and foment an insurrection anyway.
There is an odd presumption in this post that the question will be decided on the basis of legality or constitutionality. The Supreme Court will probably decide on the basis of benefit or harm to big business, which is the primary interest of the Republican Justices. However their judgements are tempered by whether they tend to make Republicans unpopular - they like to erode Democratic measures gradually.
The moratoriam mostly hurts small business.
It doesn't hurt anyone. This is just bull.
Businesses are allowed to take losses against tax liability.
Two points
1) Saying something is not legal then basically doing that action is suboptimal/bad politics
2) Forcing the Supreme Court to be the ‘bad guy’ in this situation is politically wise
On net, I call this move a draw
Also: 'I can't do this unilaterally' is not the same as 'here's a reasonable rationalization that we can take to the court that meets their previous arguments'.
Good analysis by Kevin. Given the enormous policy-making power we give to judges in our system, a certain amount of give and take between the political branches and the judiciary is to be expected. And the language of the "new" moratorium extension is different -- it specifically applies to covid hotspots. So maybe the courts will let it stand!
We cannot have that. It would disrupt the current narrative about the composition of the court...
Well, you're wrong: It wasn't an extension.
The national moratorium had expired. This new moratorium was recalibrated to be directed at only places that are hot spots whereas the old one was nationwide and covered both hot spots and cold ones where very little had changed.
I believe that this narrowly tailored scope was meant to allow it to pass judicial scrutiny under the rational basis test.
It is not bulletproof. Kavanaugh could do nuanced logical somersaults to create new restrictions out of thin air, after all.
But it is much more directed as a public health measure than the national moratorium. The expired moratorium felt much more like a general economic support mechanism to be used in a serious recession.
Kavanaugh is capable of nuance? First time I've heard that one; my impression from all the spats he's been having with the ladies is because he thinks using a meat cleaver for heart surgery is nuanced.
But I will give you this: He can, slowly and with a great effort do a somersault. Once or twice, before doing another is too painful to contemplate. And having done so, will discourse at great length about those twenty backflips he just ripped out in front of you. Because you dared him to.
Landlords have rights too. In Feb, delinquent renters owed, on average, about $5,586 each. I bet it's worse now.
Mom-and-pop landlords own approximately 77% of small building units, which are often more affordable than single-family rental homes or large apartment complexes. These small investors, like their tenants, are often more vulnerable to economic downturns.
Many of these small investors are retired, and their rental units are their main source of income, which imperils them if they can’t collect rent or receive federal aid.
Demanding income transfers from small landlords to tenants should only be done in emergency situations. And if the government is going to mandate that landlords can't evict tenets who are months behind on rent, fine but the government should compensate landlords. There is some of that happening, but the National Apartment Association estimates federal rent relief will fall short by $27B. This may be exaggerated, but there is still mistreatment of small landlords by government going on.
Dems should tread carefully here. We assume some poor person who needs rent assistance is going to generate sympathy with the public, but the general public is more likely to feel sorry for the older couple having to declare bankruptcy or lose their home because they're being stiffed by their tenants (a number of whom could clearly pay but are choosing not to because 'stick it to the man' and such). There are a lot of people who genuinely need this assistance, but there are an awful lot of people also taking advantage and outrage at that kind of shit (when it's not some billionare fleecing the system) is a lot easier to generate than sympathy for the needy.
On the other hand do these outraged folks really want homeless clogging the streets and spewing coronavirus?
What homeless??? Ones you invent??
What do you think happens when you evict people?
Landlord don't have rights.
It's not extended. Evictions are going on right now.
Putting on Martian political scientist hat: It's amusing that two unelected legislatures are battling for control over a policy area in which neither one has any real domain expertise, while a perfectly good legislature does nothing.