The eviction moratorium: Biden pretends the courts don’t matter and he can do what he wants
Ah, but it’s Trump who’s the tyrannical authoritarian.
Not good old Joe.
I was astonished by the remarks of President Joe Biden on his support for extending the eviction moratorium, which was found to be unconstitutional by lower courts. It was later preserved by a divided Supreme Court despite the view of a majority that it was unconstitutional. It was saved from being struck down merely by the fact that it was expiring. President Biden acknowledged that his legal experts overwhelmingly told him that any extension would violate the Constitution. However, he then said it was worth extending the moratorium because it would take time for a court to intervene and, in the interim, they could rush out money to renters despite the lack of constitutional authority to do so.
In other words: we can get away with it for now.
Turley goes on to point out that “Kavanaugh made clear in his opinion that he would vote against any extension as unconstitutional.” But as SCOTUS has now learned, a pre-emptive warning like that doesn’t work very well because it’s a toothless threat – it has to be followed through on later if the other branches of government decide to ignore it. Then there’s always another Joe’s (Stalin, that is, although the story may be apocryphal) question: How many divisions does the Pope have?” In this case, how many divisions does SCOTUS have?
More from Turley:
President Biden’s position not only dismisses constitutional protections but disregards his own presidential obligations…
Yet, imagine if a Republican president announced that he was told that an order on drilling or subsidizing a religious organization was unconstitutional but would use litigation to get the money out before a court could intervene. The hue and cry in the media and from law schools would be deafening.
Biden came to office declaring a return to the “rule of law” but has actually racked up an impressive array of court losses. Now he is treating a presumptively unconstitutional act as a purely tactical consideration to allow the spending of federal funds. That is not exactly what he pledged before he declared “so help me God” on January 20th.
Not exactly. Actually, not at all. But my guess is that most Democratic voters don’t care about that sort of little detail, if they consider the cause just and the president is a Democrat.
He probably remembers Obama got away with it. For years Obama, the part-time constitutional law professor, said he had no legal authority to help the “Dreamers,” but in the end he came up with DACA. Then the courts held Trump couldn’t repeal it although it was patently illegal! Why shouldn’t Joe think it’ll work for him, too?
Arguably, Biden has precedent set by another democrat.
“Well, John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” President Andrew Jackson
“Though while President Andrew Jackson ignored the Court’s decision in Worcester v. Georgia, he later issued a proclamation declaring the Supreme Court’s ultimate power to decide constitutional questions and emphasizing that its decisions had to be obeyed.”
Not that Biden and the democrats care, after all “some animals are more equal than others”.
The Democratic party long since abandoned any concern for the Constitution. Now they’re abandoning the pretense.
Time was when I was always asking my lawyer friend, “How can they do that?!”
I don’t bother anymore.
“Yet, imagine if a Republican president announced … The hue and cry in the media and from law schools would be deafening.”
Yeah, I still can’t hear after all the ruckus they raised when George W. Bush signed the “McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act” after he had explicitly stated parts were unconstitutional.
ChrisS:
Different situation. The Court hadn’t ruled on it yet when Bush signed it, “with reservations.” Furthermore, the Court upheld it afterward in 2003:
It wasn’t till many years later (2007 and then 2008) that certain portions of the bill were declared unconstitutional, and then in 2010 Citizens United said certain other parts were unconstitutional.
In addition, another huge difference was that it was passed with significant bipartisan support. You can see the way it went in the box at Wiki entitled “Legislative History.”
In other words, almost all the Democrats voted for it, and about a quarter of the Republicans in the House and a third of the Republicans in the Senate voted for it. That tells you that although there was significant bipartisanship on it, it was a heavily Democrat-supported bill. So in this case a Republican president was announcing some reservations about a bill that almost all Democrats wanted. He was cooperating with the Democrats. Why would any of those law professors object to that?
Turley obviously means that they would have objected to a Republican president signing a mainly Republican-supported law with reservations about its constitutionality. This law was a mainly Democrat-supported law, so it was perfectly fine with them.
neo:
I started a comment like that, but then it got to feel like work…
You do the jobs I won’t do.
huxley:
Nose to the grindstone here. 🙂
Fear of the Left as a motivating factor also works on SCOTUS.
Rabid dogs keep biting people until someone stops them too.
Biden doesn’t have to pretend the courts don’t matter. Brett Kavanaugh had a chance to end the eviction moratorium and instead he sent a polite letter saying it was bad. My guess is that now the justices will wait months for this to work it’s way back through the lower courts before they make a real decision. In the mean time, Uncle Joe can do what he wants
Seems the discussions about becoming a totalitarian state are already moot and have been for a L O N G time.
No recourse is possible that I can see…
In all this mess about the rent moratorium the missing part is the owners of these properties. They still have a mortgage to pay, right? How many of those not paying could pay but chose not to because they can. Another fine Dem mess.
And by what law can the CDC do this.
@ huxley “Time was when I was always asking my lawyer friend, “How can they do that?!”
I don’t bother anymore.”
It all makes sense when you realize that law school courses on Constitutional Law don’t require the students to actually read the Constitution before discussing the cases and precedents, not even back when AesopSpouse was getting a JD in the late 1970s at BYU – and the doctrinal position of the LDS Church is that the Constitution is a divinely inspired document.
I can only imagine what else is not read at Harvard.
Biden carries a copy of the Constitution with him everywhere he goes. It’s the liner of his depends.
SHIREHOME:
More warfare against the middle-class.
There are many small-time landlords with only a few properties who are hanging on for dear life. I suspect they will end up holding the bag.
Isn’t this really just another application of ‘Lawfare’? Not too surprised to see the use of the tactic expanded. The question for me really is, are there any Republicans with the backbone to start preemptively filing injunctions with the right judges and jurisdictions?
Also, it occurs to me that if the CDC and Presidunce Biden are going to insist on making it up as they go along, so can all the landlords.
Which side is the politically-correct Better Business Bureau on, one wonders?
Well, that certainly clarifies things.
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-clarifies-that-forced-eviction-moratorium-will-not-apply-to-unborn-babies
And the reason for his unconstitutional action is revealed –
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-scrambles-to-renew-eviction-moratorium-before-kamala-harris-throws-him-out-of-white-house
Anarchy – Tyranny against property owners. Riots, looting, shoplifting, etc….
This is “A Man for All Seasons” being played out in real time but in slow motion. Once enough laws have been ignored by the Biden administration and the Democrats, then what? Half the country simply ignores Washington and goes its own way? At some point does that half stop paying federal taxes and confiscate Federal property? Will anyone care about the Supreme Court that has shown itself to be unwilling to make hard decisions? Will it lead to armed conflict? It’s an interesting problem to think about.
I’m digressing a bit here, but I think it is related. Professor Barack Obama gave a troubling radio interview several years before his first presidential campaign and here is a partial transcript.
https://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamas-2001-redistribution-of-wealth.html
He doesn’t exactly come out and say that the SCOTUS should violate the constitution, though I think that implication is there. He hints that the courts aren’t very good at administrative affairs; thinks that community activism should play a bigger role; but I don’t think he cares whether courts or activism achieves more “civil rights” and social justice, the constitution be damned.
Biden learned from the master.
Punishing small time landlords is a feature not a bug.
Surprising that we haven’t heard anything from the banks holding the mortgages for these rental properties – mom and pop or major REIT types. Maybe they have been holding on (or holding off foreclosures?) waiting on the federal $ to filter back down to the tenants and then landlords? Or does the eviction moratorium actually reach all the way to the lenders? At some point they would have to also experience some pain and then look to the govt. for better or faster relief.
Also surprising that out of 50 states’ laboratories, we have not heard of at least 3 or 4 that have had or gotten their bureaucratic act together well enough to funnel federal COVID relief money out and relieve the concerns for “their” citizens. Giving money away can’t be that difficult, although doing so in a “responsible” way might be a little harder. Still, is any more really required than providing an ID, a copy of your rental agreement, and copies of your prior and current income statements? Plus maybe something linking your dwelling to the county tax rolls.
Even more logical to invite the major landlords in to process payments for multiple units and tenants at one time. Probably should have focused payouts to the landlords all along, as the more “financially savvy” party, along with any economies of scale.
“It’s not Constitutional and our job is to make such findings, but we’ll let it go on a while longer because you promised to stop” is a stupid argument, USSC.
Do foundational principles upholding the Constitution mean anything, or not? The damn expiration dates do not matter.
Beyond the important principles, there is also the practical impact to consider.
All those renters currently enjoying a holiday from paying their local landlord? Check back on them in a year or two after their local landlord has sold out to a property management firm owned by a billion dollar corporation. Rents will be going up, quality of housing will be going down, and those corporations will be paying subcontractors to do NOTHING but harass people who’ve missed a payment.
Mike
Check back on them in a year or two after their local landlord has sold out to a property management firm owned by a billion dollar corporation. Rents will be going up, quality of housing will be going down, and those corporations will be paying subcontractors to do NOTHING but harass people who’ve missed a payment.
MBunge:
And, like the Hokey-Pokey, that’s what it’s all about.
@Huxley:
All the smart people know that the creativity and wealth creation by adding value jig will very soon be up for the foreseeable future. The name of the game now is consolidating gains and locking them down as hard physical assets.
Why else is Bill Gates now the largest owner of farm land in the USA?
We’re headed for a new age of feudalism when the Funny Money game of musical chairs stops. At which point it’s handy to have a few spare asteroids in parking orbit ready to go if someone gets ideas about your land bank or other stashes.
John Hayward aka Doc Zero –
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1422914500974501890.html
@ Paul “This is “A Man for All Seasons” being played out in real time but in slow motion. Once enough laws have been ignored by the Biden administration and the Democrats, then what?”
I hate resorting to Twitter, but this is the perfect reply.
https://twitter.com/RepGosar/status/1422752172320727041
“If you let politicians break the law during an emergency, they will create an emergency in order to break the law.”
Not original to Gosar, as a web search indicates.
I liked the headline on this one.
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/it_was_the_bestestershire/
“It was the bestestershire, it was the worcestershire”
(lists the saying and some variants as posted on Facebook etc)
Maybe the original origin was the Simpson’s –
https://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/notable-quotable-if-you-let-politicians-break-the-law-t22118.html
Comments:
I guess it goes without saying that significant amounts of all that bogus gazillion-dollar “Human Rights 1” / “Infrastructure” legislation that the Democrats intend to RAM through Congress is precisely to pay off whomever it is determined MUST be paid off…(which is perfectly understandable for what is essentially a criminal mafia).
This essentially means—nothing new here, though—that the Democrats are taking the money for these massive paybacks from “We the People”.
IOW they are reverse—and perverse—Robin Hoods. (And of course, as has already been mentioned, to quash the Middle Class…along with anyone else “Biden” feels has to be made an example of.)
To recap.
The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
The criminals are in charge of the government.
And…”There’s a lot of ruin in a country.”
“I guess it goes without saying that significant amounts of all that bogus gazillion-dollar “Human Rights 1” / “Infrastructure” legislation that the Democrats intend to RAM through Congress is precisely to pay off whomever it is determined MUST be paid off”
Dems and fellow travelers (primarily media but also SCOTUS) seem to act as though worried that lack of safety nets would quickly lead to starvation in the streets and violent revolution.
Therefore just enable vast ad hoc giveaways.
When did the Republic die? Probably when Pres. Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. Or maybe it was Cf. Just. Marshall’s usurpation of the power to judge the constitutionality of acts of Congress in 1803. Whatever. We have not had a constitutional republic for a long time.
PS. The Progressive Republicans of the latter 19th and early 20th Centuries, beginning with Lincoln, were largely responsible for killing off the Republic. Biden is in good company.
PS. The Progressive Republicans of the latter 19th and early 20th Centuries, beginning with Lincoln, were largely responsible for killing off the Republic.
I have to say it’s amusing that no matter what the subject is, you utter nonsense remarks.
I have more sympathy for the January 6th defendants every day.
I assume this will drive a large number of smaller landlords out of business, forced to either sell their properties or have them foreclosed by the banks. And many of the properties will end up being bought up by organizations like Blackrock and Blackstone. I suspect that having gargantuan asset management companies as landlords rather than a person they can talk to directly won’t be an improvement for tenants.
“We’re headed for a new age of feudalism when the Funny Money game of musical chairs stops.”
Feudalism, even the neo-feudalism we’re seeing in California, is unsustainable in a world of mass education and firearms. The billionaires don’t run the show in China and, if they let everything fall apart, they won’t run the show in America.
Mike
Art Deco – Just to add to the fun, I’ll say a few words in defense of Bob Sykes. 🙂 I believe Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president this country has ever had and maybe the greatest that we ever will have. Nothing less than greatness could have held the country together through the Civil War. That said, he did abuse the Constitution during the Civil War and some of his whiggish ideas about government-funded improvements and expanded federal power would be considered downright progressive today.
I think the overall issue is that people in general and progressives in particular have come to believe that the rules don’t apply to them.
To progressives, things like the Constitution and the rule of law are obstacles to be overcome in the pursuit of one’s own conception of justice rather than the basis of how we all live together in settled peace.
The problem is that justice can be mighty subjective at the edges and the person who plays by rules that the opposing faction does not feel bound by is a fool.
I think Trump recognized the latter observation and that if he hadn’t someone else was bound to do so.
But once we reach a point where no one follows the rules, we’re all in a heap of trouble. We may be there already.
That said, he did abuse the Constitution during the Civil War
Sykes contention was rather more florid than that.
and some of his whiggish ideas about government-funded improvements and expanded federal power would be considered downright progressive today.
They wouldn’t.
Another way of saying something such as this is in unconstitutional is that it is against the law. It’s also a violation of the oath of office. Something about protecting and defending the constitution . . .
That sounds a lot more impeachable than the charades we’ve seen in the last couple of years.
Two good articles on this on Hotair tonight. Surprisingly, the Washington Post got critical.
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2021/08/05/wapo-editors-what-would-dems-have-done-if-trump-defied-scotus-like-biden-just-did-n406909
Tribe v. Turley…
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2021/08/05/how-the-moratorium-got-extended-pelosi-told-biden-that-harvard-professor-laurence-tribe-would-back-it-n406916
“Take that, kulaks!”
I was going to say something uncharacteristically insulting about the Marionette’s approach to this topic, but thought better of it overnight. However, the moral weakness that he has exhibited by showing his unsteadiness in the face of certain types of criticism, having apparently reversed his administration’s position on the subject at the first push from the left, inspired me to dust off my pejorative label for him.
This topic feels important to me. Though I’ve always been a renter myself, the offense against the right of property is palpable. Legal counterattacks along the line of the Takings Clause readily suggest themselves. In the comments on Turley’s article on this subject, I saw one commenter who started out making a fairly reasonable case in favor of the eviction extension, but who later drifted into lower-grade histrionics. So while I have a certain quotient of sympathy for tenants who really have been given the short end of the stick and aren’t merely freeloading, given the fact that most landlords are not particularly rich, I can’t really get enthusiastic about any eviction moratorium even in those cases. But this from the Marionette seems just vile to me.
It’s a good point that was made above about the effect that this may be anticipated to have on making the ultra-rich ultra-richer in the sense of their real estate holdings. I’m wrestling these days with the question of how a MAGAist administration, should one ever again find its way to power, could possibly go about rebalancing the scales of economic power in some measure. Just as the Constitution is not a suicide pact, so it should also not be the inevitable gateway to oligarchy, it seems to me. So it’s going to be a real question how to at least partially claw back what the oligarchs of today have gained at the expense of the rest of us, but without resorting to history’s ‘usual’ methods and mechanisms.
I saw a news story about an old man of the woods in New Hampshire who’s apparently getting turned out by the new landowner after having lived out there on this piece of property for 27 years. Again, I have some sympathy for the old man, actually more in that case since he’s apparently always tried to just mind his own business. If I were that landowner, I would seriously consider letting him stay there for the rest of his life if he wanted to. That one is a tougher call in my mind than what the Marionette is now proposing.
Aggie on August 4, 2021 at 9:41 pm said:
Also, it occurs to me that if the CDC and Presidunce Biden are going to insist on making it up as they go along, so can all the landlords.
Well, that’s a fine theory, but the problem is that “eviction” implies quite literally the involvement of the government to enforce the landlord’s property rights. A court has to hear the eviction and issue the actual order of eviction, and the police almost always have to at least attend the eviction under threat of enforcement. Considering the vast majority of these are taking place in large urban areas (I live in a small “city” where I know some landlords and it hasn’t been much of a problem here) you can be sure no court will hear the case, let alone issue an order of eviction and the police are surely not going to intervene.
Anyone that isn’t a rabid progressive ought to seriously re-consider if they live in any such urban area. There are absolutely no signs that their downward spirals are in any danger of reversing course anytime in the near future.
Lots of discussion on the webz, but this has good optics and a lot of appeal for those who believe in Karma Law (the nemesis of Lawfare).
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/05/landlord-group-uses-bidens-own-words-against-him-in-petition-against-his-new-eviction-order-n421680?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=-1
Neither donald nor joe matters to me.
I will simply do what god wishes.