Supreme Court blocks Biden administration's eviction moratorium

Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday lifted the Biden administration's newest federal ban on evictions, granting a bid from a group of landlords to block the pandemic-related protections for renters in most of the country facing eviction.

The court split 6-3 along ideological lines, finding that "careful review" of the case "makes clear that the applicants are virtually certain to succeed on the merits of their argument that the CDC has exceeded its authority." "It would be one thing if Congress had specifically authorized the action that the CDC has taken. But that has not happened," the court said in an unsigned opinion. "Instead, the CDC has imposed a nationwide moratorium on evictions in reliance on a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination. It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts."