Coronavirus | Supreme Court blocks eviction moratorium, allowing Biden to enforce help

The Supreme Court of the United States's ruling is blocking temporary evictions across the United States, and allowing Biden Administration to enforce an uprising that was put in place because of coronavirus pandemic.

The court's action late Thursday ends protection for roughly 3.5 million people in the United States who reported facing eviction in 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 imposed the moratorium on Aug. 3 without explicit congressional authorization, lacked the authority to do so under federal law. The judges rejected the administration's arguments in support of CDC's authority.

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

Three liberal justices dissented. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the three, pointed to the increase in COVID 19 caused by delta variant as one of the reasons the court should have left the moratorium in place. 'The public interest strongly favors respecting the CDC's judgment at this moment, when over 90% of counties are experiencing high transmission rates, Breyer wrote.

White House Press Secretary Joe Biden 'is once again calling on all entities that can prevent evictions to local courts, landlords, cabinet Agencies — from cities and states to national courts, positions — to action now.

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., who had camped outside the Capitol as the eviction moratorium expired at the end of last month, said Congress must act to reinstate protections.

'We are in an unprecedented and ongoing crisis that demands compassionate solutions that center the needs of people and communities most in need of our help. We need to give our communities time to heal from this devastating pandemic, she said in a statement. 'We don't sleep on those steps just to give up now. It was the second loss for the administration this week at the hands of the conservative majority of the high court. On Tuesday, the court effectively allowed the reinstatement of a Trump-era policy forcing asylum seekers to wait for their hearings in Mexico. The new administration had tried to stop the Remain in Mexico program, as it is informally known.

On evictions, President Joe Biden acknowledged the legal headwinds the new moratorium would likely encounter. But Biden said that even with doubts about what courts would do, it was worth a try because it would buy at least a few weeks of time for the distribution of more of the $46.5 billion in rent assistance Congress had approved.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the speed of distribution has increased and nearly a million families have been helped. But only about 11% of the money, just over $5 billion, has been distributed by state and local governments, Department said.

The administration has demanded state and local officials to'move more aggressively' with distribution of rental assistance funds and urged state and local courts to issue their own moratoriums to prevent eviction filings until landlords and tenants have sought the funds.

A handful of states, including California, Maryland and New Jersey, have set up temporary eviction bans. In a separate order earlier this month, the high court ended some protections for New York residents who had fallen behind on their rents during the pandemic.

The high court indicated strongly in late June that it would take this path if asked again to intervene. At that time, the Court allowed an earlier pause on evictions to continue until the end of July.

But four conservative justices would have set the moratorium aside then and a fifth, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, said Congress would have to expressly authorize a new pause on evictions. Both houses of Congress passed a new moratorium on evictions.

At first the administration allowed the earlier moratorium to lapse on July 31 and said it had no legal authority to allow it to continue. But the CDC released a new moratorium days later as pressure mounted from lawmakers and others to help vulnerable renters stay in their homes as the coronavirus' delta variant surged. The moratorium was scheduled to end Oct. 3 for the next scheduled run of the United States.

Landlords in Alabama and Georgia who challenged the earlier eviction ban quickly returned to court where they received a sympathetic hearing. "The new moratorium was beyond the authority of the CDC," said Dabney Friedrich, an appointee of President Donald Trump.

However, Friedrich said she was powerless to stop it because of an earlier ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. which sits above her. The court of appeal for the District of Columbia Circuit likewise refused to put the CDC order on hold, prompting landlords' emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

The earlier versions of the moratorium, which was first instituted during Trump's presidency, applied nationwide and were voted out of fear that people who couldn't pay their rent would end up in crowded living conditions like homeless shelters and help spread the virus.

The new moratorium temporarily halted evictions in counties with high level virus transmissions and would cover areas where 90% of U.S. population lives.

The Biden administration argued that the rise in the delta variant underscored the dangers of resuming evictions in areas of high transmission of COVID - 19. But that argument did not find broad support on high court.