John Daniel Davidson of the Federalist takes Democrats to task for their support of an extended nationwide eviction moratorium.
An astonishing thing happened this week in Washington that didn’t get much critical coverage from a media establishment loath to criticize President Biden. At the behest of congressional Democrats, Biden flouted the Constitution and broke his oath of office by issuing a ban on evictions that he and his advisers know to be illegal.
By “ban on evictions” I mean the president issued a blatantly unconstitutional decree that renters all across America don’t have to pay rent. If landlords try to evict tenants for not paying rent, they could face criminal penalties including fines and imprisonment.
The eviction moratorium is one of the most important stories of the COVID-19 lockdowns but also one of the least covered, partly because its effects are so diffuse and partly because the left doesn’t want to draw undue attention to its evisceration of property rights under the guise of public health.
But the way all this has gone down illustrates a deeply disturbing reality about the Democrats running the pandemic response in Washington: They’re lawless, and as the pandemic drags on, they’re becoming bolder about it. …
… Indeed, the notion that a federal agency tasked with the control and prevention of infectious diseases could simply by fiat impose an “eviction moratorium” on the entire country, effectively nationalizing housing, is shocking and outrageous. Biden himself knows this. At a press conference on Tuesday, he said that “the bulk of the constitutional scholars say it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster.”
It sure isn’t. But later that same day he did it anyway. The next day, White House press secretary Jen Psaki came out and lied to reporters’ faces about the moratorium, claiming it wasn’t an extension of the old ban but a brand new one. …
