Bill would let HHS ban evictions
Moratorium power in health crises proposed
WASHINGTON – Liberal lawmakers will introduce legislation this week that would give the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to create federal eviction moratoriums – pushing back against a ruling by the Supreme Court that the agency does not have the authority to do so.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Cori Bush, D-MO., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-mass., comes weeks after the high court blocked the Biden administration’s eviction moratorium, ruling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not have authority to impose the freeze. The CDC is one of the arms of HHS.
The legislation – dubbed the Keeping Renters Safe Act of 2021 – aims to protect renters from eviction by amending Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act to grant the HHS and CDC permanent authority to implement federal eviction moratoriums to address public health crises.
The Public Health Service Act authorizes the federal government to respond to medical and health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Section 361 specifies the HHS secretary is authorized to “take measures to prevent the entry and spread of communicable diseases.” Those functions are delegated to the CDC.
Through the Keeping Renters Safe Act, the lawmakers argued that the eviction of millions during a national emergency would increase the likelihood of diseases spreading.
“This pandemic isn’t over, and we have to do everything we can to protect renters from the harm and trauma of needless eviction, which upends the lives of those struggling to get back on their feet,” Warren said. “Pushing hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes will only exacerbate this public health crisis and cause economic harm to families, their communities and our overall recovery.”
Bush told USA TODAY, “This is the only way we make sure that we are keeping people safe, especially now that we are dealing with this pandemic that continues to surge and is just out of control.”
Congress approved an eviction moratorium in the early months of the pandemic in 2020.
A few months later, President Donald Trump ordered the CDC to impose its own freeze, which it did last September. The CDC’S freeze was extended several times, and President Joe Biden extended it again in June for 30 days, prompting a political and legal battle over its impact.
As the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus took hold, Biden asked Congress to take up the matter.
When lawmakers could not reach a consensus, the CDC and the Biden administration announced a moratorium in August that would have run through the end of October.
Several real estate groups in Georgia and Alabama sued.
The Supreme Court shot down Biden’s attempt to extend the moratorium for the hardest-hit areas. Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh said in a previous ruling by the court that it’s up to Congress to pass a bill giving the CDC authority.
Kavanaugh wrote a warning in June that the CDC “exceeded its existing statutory authority by issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium.”
“Clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would
be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31,” he said.
The legislation would apply to all residential eviction filings, hearings, judgments and execution of judgments.
The ruling from the Supreme Court allowed property owners to begin the process of evicting millions of Americans who are behind on rent.
One in six renters is estimated to be behind on rent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.
Sabrina Davis, 63, in Kansas City, Missouri, was evicted in August during an ongoing legal battle with her landlord.
Davis told USA TODAY she felt “thrown away” by her city, state and nation, and the government “could care less.”
“Why are we, as citizens of this country, going through this?” she asked through tears.
Davis expressed gratitude for being able to stay with a friend, but she emphasized that her eviction “exposed me greatly” to COVID-19.
Eviction is “like a death sentence. It’s like I’ve been just thrown out there to the virus,” she said. If her friend had not taken her in, Davis said, she would have had to go to a shelter, which might well have been crowded or overflowing, or live on the streets.
Bush, who has been evicted herself, slept outside the Capitol for several nights in a protest designed to draw attention to the expiring moratorium.
The moratorium under the new legislation would remain in effect for at least 60 days “after the conclusion of the public health emergency.”
It is unclear whether the legislation will gather Republican support in either chamber of Congress.
Bush told USA TODAY she wishes to see the legislation attached and passed through a continuing resolution: a temporary, stopgap funding measure to avoid a government shutdown while Congress debates how to fund the government.
In August, Republicans objected to an effort to pass an extension through the House. In the Senate, 10 Republicans would need to join all 50 Democratic-voting senators to push the legislation past a filibuster.
This summer, Republicans from both chambers argued against extending the eviction moratorium, citing questions over its legality. Republicans pointed to COVID-19 assistance legislation that delegated billions of dollars to tenants and landlords to prevent evictions.
Millions of Americans, renters and landlords alike, have not received the emergency rental assistance available to them through a federal program administered by their states.
“Congress appropriated $47 billion of rental assistance to address this exact problem. The admin’s time would be better spent dealing with its failure to get money owed to landlords rather than papering over its failures with illegal actions,” Sen. Pat Toomey, R-PA., said in a tweet this summer.
Contributing: John Fritze, Joey Garrison