Federal judge refuses to block Biden's eviction moratorium after realtors sued in Alabama claiming it is unlawful and political
A federal judge on Friday ruled against a challenge to President Biden's eviction moratorium after a group of landlords.
U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, appointed under former President Trump, said her 'hands are tied' by the decision of an appeals court, which concluded that an earlier version of the moratorium, based on the same public health claim the CDC made in the current iteration, is legal.
'Absent the D.C. circuit's judgment, this court would vacate the stay,' and block the moratorium, the judge added.
Congress imposed a four-month freeze on evictions in March 2020. The Centers for Disease Control , then under President Trump, issued its own moratorium that expired July 31.
The group of landlords, led by the Alabama Association of Realtors, challenged the CDC's first moratorium as well as this one. They argued the moratorium was unlawful and had been enacted for 'nakedly political reasons- to ease the political pressure, shift the blame to the courts for ending the moratorium, and use litigation delays to achieve a policy objective.'
Friedrich had ruled against the CDC's original moratorium back in May, but stayed her order to give the Biden administration time to appeal.
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a panel of three judges appointed by President Obama, rejected the landlord's plea to enforce Friedrich's ruling. She's now bound to follow the ruling from the appeals court that sits above her.
The Biden administration had argued that the latest rent freeze was less broad in scope than the original, since it only applies to counties with high rates of Covid-19 transmission. The government conceded that 90 percent of the country is in an area of high transmission.
'The minor differences between the current and previous moratoria do not exempt the former from this Court's order,' that the CDC lacks authority to order a temporary ban on evictions, Friedrich wrote.
The landlords could ask the Supreme Court to weigh in.
Last month, the court ruled 5-4 refusing to allow evictions to resume, but only because the moratorium was set to expire at the end of the month. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in an opinion that it would take an act of Congress to enact another moratorium.
U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich said she would have blocked the moratorium if an appellate court had not already deemed the CDC's first rent freeze to be legal
Demonstrators attend a rally calling for an extension of the state's eviction ban until 2022 and the cancellation of rent, in lower Manhattan, New York city on August 11, 2021. - Under pressure from progressive Democrats, US health authorities declared a new moratorium on evictions until October in much of the country, citing public health risks posed by the pandemic
President Biden faced intense pressure from his party's leftist flank, and extended the moratorium though he admitted it might be struck down in court
The challengers argued the Supreme Court had already signaled the CDC lacked the authority for the moratorium.
Biden had faced intense pressure from his party's left flank to extend the moratorium without Congress, though he admitted that he wasn't sure if he had the legal authority to do so. Squad members, most notably Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., drew attention to the cause by camping out on the Capitol steps for 5 days.
Biden told reporters at the White House last week he spoke to 'a number of legal scholars' about the moratorium and there was a 'split' in their opinion.
'I can't guarantee you the court won't rule that we don't have that authority but at least we'll have the ability to, if we have to appeal, to keep this going for a month - at least. I hope longer,' he said.
He added that he hoped it would give states time to distribute funds they have in their possession from an earlier allocation by Congress.
Distribution of rental assistance that Congress allocated in December and March has been painfully slow. The $47 billion Emergency Rental Assistance program has, to date, disbursed only $3 billion.
More than 15 million people live in households that owe as much as $20 billion to their landlords, according to the Aspen Institute. As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey.