RELEASE: CAC Responds to SCOTUS Eviction Moratorium Decision and Troubling Shadow Docket
WASHINGTON – Following the Supreme Court’s decision to end the pandemic-related residential eviction moratorium, Constitutional Accountability Center President Elizabeth Wydra issued the following statement:
“The Supreme Court’s decision in the eviction moratorium case is wrong on substance, and troubling in process. By striking down a Biden Administration eviction moratorium newly tailored to meet the deadly challenge of a faster-spreading variant of COVID-19, the Supreme Court has rendered a decision that imperils the housing and lives of countless members of the American family, and this unsigned order lacked the full briefing, oral argument, and transparency we expect from our nation’s highest court.
Taken in tandem with the other shadow docket decision earlier this week — allowing to go into effect a district court order that requires the Biden administration to try to reinstate a Trump-era policy that forces many people to endure a dangerous wait in Mexico for their asylum hearing — the contrast with Trump-era shadow docket orders is striking. During the Trump administration, the Supreme Court time and again deferred to executive branch decision-making, but now it appears to be applying different standards to the decisions of the Biden administration. Respect for the high court as an institution is at stake. But reputational harm pales in comparison to the human cost. As Justice Breyer’s dissent (joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan) rightly reminds us, the court’s actions “impact the health of millions.”
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Resources:
CAC Brief: Tiger Lily, LLC v. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
“Attacks on the Eviction Moratorium Are Attacks on the Administrative State,” Miriam Becker-Cohen, CAC Blog, July 8, 2021
CAC’s Testimony to Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, August 20, 2021
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