Maxine Waters: President Should Issue Executive Order to Extend Eviction Moratorium Expiring Tonight for 11+ Million People

Bias

Neutral Bias
This article has neutral bias with a bias score of -10.18 from our political bias detecting A.I.

Janet Ybarra
Democrat
Former Washington Journalist
Contributor on The Bipartisan Press

Hover to Expand

In the face of House Democrats having failed to pass their own national moratorium on housing evictions, President Biden should muscle past concerns about the Supreme Court and move ahead with his own executive moratorium, according to a top House Democrat.

The House failed to pass a last-minute attempt to enact a legislative moratorium so as to shield millions of vulnerable Americans who may now lose their homes, and therefore contribute to the spread of COVID-19.

The original moratorium put in place by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention expired Saturday. The director of the CDC has already said that her agency would not be extending the CDC moratorium further.

The Supreme Court last month handed down a ruling on the moratorium which allowed it to continue through July, but put a question mark on future moratoria from the executive branch. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s decision, in particular, puts future executive moratoria in jeopardy.

Proponents of the moratorium say that a further moratorium is needed to give Americans who have slipped behind on their rent more time to access the emergency rental assistance available through the American Rescue Plan approved earlier this year.

That hasn’t mollified many Democrats who are concerned and angry over the end of the moratorium — including the powerful chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee.

“Well, first place, we thought the White House was in charge and we know that Kavanaugh at the Supreme Court said that they did not think the president had the authority to use executive power to extend the moratorium,” said Rep Maxine Waters (D-Calif). “However, I think the president shouldn’t have taken opinion from one of the members of the Supreme Court, he should have gone forward with an executive order to expand and to extend the moratorium and then let whatever and whomever wanted to file a lawsuit, whatever they want to do, to come after and challenge that opinion, but the president should have moved on it, he should have used executive power and executive order to expand and extend the moratorium.”