Modified Good News

On Wednesday I reported that the Supreme Court had struck down the CDC’s extension of the eviction moratorium (article here). However, the celebration may have been a bit premature.

Yesterday NewsMax reported the following:

The court’s action late Thursday ends protections for roughly 3.5 million people in the United States who said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to Census Bureau data from early August.

The court said in an unsigned opinion that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reimposed the moratorium Aug. 3, lacked the authority to do so under federal law without explicit congressional authorization. The justices rejected the administration’s arguments in support of the CDC’s authority.

“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” the court wrote.

Just for the record, I don’t believe that Congress has the authority to specifically authorize a moratorium on evictions. An eviction is usually the result of someone either not paying their rent or destroying the rental property. Those events are usually detailed in a contract that the renter signs with the Landlord. That contract requires the payment of rent and puts certain requirements on the tenant for the upkeep of the property. For Congress to interfere in a private contract between the renter and the Land goes against the private property rights guaranteed by our Constitution. A Supreme Court that was actually upholding the U.S. Constitution would strike down any law from Congress that interfered with private property rights.