Kavanaugh Sides with Leftists Against Private Business Owners, Upholds CDC’s Moratorium on Evictions of Delinquent Tenants

The Supreme Court held that the CDC can continue to impose a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures due to the Covid lockdowns causing millions to not pay rent or mortgages yesterday. It was made possible by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the so-called “conservative” Justice who sided with the four progressives.

The association had asked the court to act on an emergency basis to vacate a stay on a lower-court decision overturning the ban, saying the “stay will prolong the severe financial burdens borne by landlords under the moratorium for the past nine months.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s moratorium is currently set to expire July 31 after the Biden administration extended it last week, with the CDC saying it intended the move as the final extension. Some six million renter households are behind on rent, according to a recent Census survey.

Kavanaugh wrote in Tuesday’s decision that he agreed with the lower-court ruling that the CDC had exceeded its authority but that its pending expiration swayed his thinking.

This, folks, is a judicial copout. Kavanaugh’s claim is that since the moratorium ends in a month and the ever-so-trustworthy Biden regime claims they won’t extend it (they’ve said that before) that he is willing to sidestep the Constitution for the sake of it being no big deal. Tell that to the landlords who are struggling to pay their bills as a result of government’s unconstitutional restrictions.

The role of Supreme Court Justices is to interpret the law and uphold the Constitution. It’s not to make “pragmatic” decisions based on politics, which is exactly what Kavanaugh did. The Constitution does not grant the executive branch in DC the power to force private businesses to offer a service and use of their property with no recourse for non-payment and no realistic expectation of future compensation.

Headline USA reported:

No federal law grants the CDC any license or authority to impose such a mandate. U.S. Judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington had struck down the moratorium as exceeding the CDC’s authority, but put her ruling on hold. The high court voted 5-4 to keep the ban in place until the end of July.

In a brief opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he agreed with Friedrich’s ruling, but voted to leave the ban on evictions in place because it’s due to end in a month and “because those few weeks will allow for additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance funds.”

As a practical matter, the moratorium was always a band-aid measure. The long it’s kept in place, the more it will fester, sending people further behind on their payments and forcing rental property owners to suffer. It’s a band-aid that should have been ripped off shortly after it was put in place. Instead, it’s been lingering like an economic timebomb that will go off as soon as the Biden regime stops kicking the can down the road.

Landlords are being told they must allow their property to be used, free of charge. They are told they must continue to service these properties, again free of charge. Brett Kavanaugh is proving once again he does not support the Constitution.

“Remember when Bush tried to appoint Harriet Meiers? The left was triumphant they sank a SCOTUS nomination, but her being replaced by Alito is the best thing to have happened for conservatives in the last 20 years.”

Yes. I remember that era. I was advocating against Harriet. To me it was another point in GW Bush’s administration where he took personal loyalty too far.

I felt he was that way with Rumsfield as well, but in that I am not sure how factually accurate were my impressions of Rumsfield at the time - the fog of ALL the media.

"The government does not have the right to invalidate a valid contract."

Centuries of contract law went out the window with the civil rights and fair housing legislation. One fundamental aspect of contracts under common law was that a valid contract must be entered into by all parties willingly and without coercion. When a landlord is forced to rent a property to somebody he would otherwise not willingly rent to, he is entering the contract under the coercive force of government.

IMHO, the next legal principle to fall will be the "reasonable person," standard. Legal arguments will be made in tort cases that resemble the arguments made for doing away with the SAT as a standard for university admission. That is, juries will no longer consider whether a defendant exercised a commonly accepted standard of due care, but whether or not their actions were reasonable according to their race, gender, educational level, financial circumstances etc.

Expect successful people to be held to a higher standard. Deeper pockets have always made attractive targets, and our courts will now make them easier targets as well.

“Many Freepers here doubted me when I said “There are no conservative judges”. There will never be a conservative supreme court.”

Well, you may be right, but there is a way to do it. Just don’t nominate judges. Hell, don’t nominate lawyers at all. There’s nothing in the Constitution that says Supreme Court Justices need to have a law degree.

Of course the “Republican” Senate would probably rebel and refuse to confirm someone who wasn’t part of the system.

“The Federalist Society has been a huge disappointment. There has to be other alternatives.”

The problem is much more fundamental. With the exception of a small handful of law schools, none “elite,” every law student becomes indoctrinated in legal relativism and the primacy of “case law” rather than legislation of the Constitution. Many/most decisions are expressly contrary to the plain and simple meaning of the Constitution. I was once at a dinner party which included a retired state supreme court justice, and he was quite frank about his decisions being almost never based on the wording of the State Constitution but rather case law and the political needs of the leftist agenda. I saw this as a pre-law undergraduate in the early 70s before I got sense and switched to something useful, when the leftist professors could twist themselves into pretzels to justify their so-called reasoning.

If you are choosing your SCOTUS candidates from that swamp, any successes are a surprise.

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