WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal appeals court on Friday said a break in evictions designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus could remain in place for now, setting up a battle in the nation’s highest court.
A three-judge court in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected an offer from Alabama and Georgia owners to block the eviction moratorium reinstated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in early this month.
The landlords filed an emergency motion hours later in the Supreme Court, urging judges to allow evictions to proceed.
The Supreme Court voted between 5 and 4 in June to allow the moratorium to continue until the end of July. But Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the majority, warned the administration not to act anymore without the explicit approval of Congress.
“As five members of this court pointed out less than two months ago, Congress never gave the CDC the impressive power it claims,” the landlords ’attorneys in the Supreme Court said Friday.
In a brief written decision, the appellate court said the court had rejected a similar offer and a lower court also declined to overturn the moratorium.
“In view of this decision and which is contained in the file before us, we also deny the emergency motion addressed to this court,” the judges said in the ruling.
The Biden administration allowed an earlier moratorium to expire on July 31, saying it had no legal authority to allow it to continue. But the CDC issued a new moratorium days later as pressure from lawmakers and others increased to help vulnerable tenants stay home while the delta variant of the coronavirus increased. The moratorium is expected to expire on October 3.
As of Aug. 2, approximately 3.5 million people in the United States said they had faced eviction in the next two months, according to the Census Bureau Household Dust Survey.
The new moratorium temporarily halted evictions in counties with “substantial and high levels” of virus transmissions and would cover areas where 90% of the U.S. population lives.
The Trump administration initially imposed a nationwide eviction moratorium last year for fear that people who cannot pay rent would end up in overcrowded living conditions such as homeless shelters and help spread the virus.
President Joe Biden acknowledged that there were questions about the legality of the new eviction freeze. But he said a legal battle for the new order would gain time for the distribution of some of the more than $ 45 billion in rental aid that has been approved but has not yet been used.
In urging the appellate court to uphold the ban, the Biden administration noted that the new moratorium was more directed than the national ban that had expired and that the picture had changed since the Supreme Court ruling due of the spread of the highly contagious delta. variant.
The owners accused the Biden administration of speleology to political pressure and of reinstating the moratorium even though it knew it was illegal.
“In light of the Executive Branch’s statement that its litigation efforts are designed to gain time to achieve its economic policy goals – and the fact that landlords are now subject to federal criminal sanctions for exercising their rights property depending on where they do business – applicants respectfully ask this court to issue reparation measures as soon as possible, ”his lawyers told the Supreme Court.
A lower court judge ruled earlier this month that the freeze was illegal, but rejected the owners’ request to lift the moratorium, saying their hands were bound by an appeal decision. the last time the courts considered the moratorium on evictions in the spring.
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Richer reported from Boston.