Despite the Supreme Court’s explicit warning that any executive extension of the federal eviction moratorium would be struck down, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided this week to implement a new moratorium anyway for two months. When asked about the legal obstacles this policy would inevitably run into, President Joe Biden admitted that what his administration is doing is illegal, but he said he doesn’t care.
“Constitutionally, the bulk of the constitutional scholarship says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster,” Biden admitted during a press conference on Tuesday. “Look. I want to make it clear. I told you I would not tell the Justice Department or the medical experts or scientists what they should say or do, so I don’t want to get ahead of the CDC.”
He continued, “At a minimum, by the time it is litigated, we’ll probably give some additional time while we’re getting that $45 billion out to people who are, in fact, behind in the rent and don’t have the money.”
In other words, Biden knows that the CDC is acting illegally but wants the agency to continue to act illegally until the courts can get around to stopping it. Litigation takes time, which means the moratorium could be in effect for weeks, maybe even months, before it is struck down. And even when it is declared unconstitutional, there is no way to go back and force renters to pay the money they owed when the moratorium was in place, even if the moratorium itself was illegal.
Keep reading at The Washington Examiner for more.
