Gimmick...

 

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration's Covid-related eviction moratorium.

"Congress was on notice that a further extension would almost surely require new legislation, yet it failed to act in the several weeks leading up to the moratorium's expiration," the court wrote in an unsigned, eight-page opinion

Landlord groups challenging the eviction ban pointed to a concurrence written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh when the earlier version of the moratorium was before the Supreme Court in June. Kavanaugh said Congress had to act in order to extend it.

The landlords accused the Biden administration of "gamesmanship" for ultimately reviving the moratorium after several top administration officials said, in the wake of Kavanaugh's concurrence, that they did not think the Supreme Court would uphold an extension of the moratorium.

The court pointed to the "decades-old statute" the CDC was relying on to defend the moratorium that it "strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts."