A federal ban on evictions expired over the weekend after Congress failed to pass an extension. Nancy Pelosi tried to give up Congress’ power as an answer.
Summary
The House of Representatives left D.C. Friday without passing a bill that extends the nationwide moratorium on evictions, originally passed as an emergency measure at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
- The eviction moratorium was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, but various justices’ opinions suggested further extending the moratorium by executive order would be ripe for a successful legal challenge.
- While local homeless shelters are concerned about a possible surge in occupants, Las Vegas local news outlet KTNV points out less than seven percent of funds from the American Rescue Plan’s rental assistance, passed in March, has been utilized by renters.
- Squad leader NY Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez waited until after it was apparent Congress would not extend the moratorium to blast Congressional leaders, saying this one isn’t on Republicans, that Democrats holding congressional majorities were to blame for inaction.
- Fellow squad member Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri has been camping outside the Capitol in protest of the moratorium’s expiration.
- Two days after adjourning the House for a seven-week district work period, Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the Biden administration, who has said they will not take unilateral action, to extend the ban on evictions via executive action.
- CNN covered Rep. Bush’s campout protest, who criticized fellow Democrats for going “on vacation” when millions of Americans are at risk of being evicted, and in separate reporting, CNN called out Congressional Democrats for taking their eye off the ball, conceding they couldn’t blame Republicans.
- Vox provided a comprehensive rundown of the situation, including a brief history of the rental assistance program, which includes federal bureaucratic incompetence, state bureaucratic arrogance, and the rare admission from Vox that the moratorium actually was bad for landlords.
- The Washington Post compared the United States’ situation with the eviction moratorium to how other nations handled potential expiration of similar bans.
- Fox News focused on the Democrat in-fighting, with AOC taking a swipe at both Democratic House leadership and the White House for not extending the moratorium, who said “the House was put into a needlessly difficult situation.”
- RedState characterized the eviction moratorium as another example of “interventions imposed upon America by politicians and public health nazis” that have no “observable effect upon the severity of the virus” but have negatively affected “the civil liberties of Americans.”
- The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board criticized Democrats for wanting to extend the eviction ban despite billions in aid yet to be disbursed, saying it’s not landlords’ fault government bureaucrats are incompetent.
Author’s Take
Credit where its due: AOC, Cori Bush, and the squad are finally pinning the blame where it belongs. With June ruling from the Supreme Court, Congressional Democrats and the White House knew exactly what was coming down the pike. Yet, they did nothing.
Pelosi’s sudden reversal on the constitutional abilities of the executive branch is craven politics at its worst. She wants to cede legislative power to the bureaucracy when it is convenient for her. For politicians, there will always be a time in which it is more convenient to willingly give up difficult decisions to nameless, faceless bureaucrats. In fact, we’ve been doing it for 100 years. This is how the regulatory state becomes so powerful and the legislative branch so impotent.
Finally, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board misses the mark. Conflating GDP growth with individuals’ economic security is a mistake far too many conservatives make. Is there correlation? Most likely. But GDP numbers reports don’t pay the bills. Considerations and remarks like these show the ivory towers of out of touch leftist academia could be mirrored by the marble towers of Big Finance.
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
