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WASHINGTON (AP) – Anger and frustration rose in Congress over the weekend as a national moratorium on evictions expired amid an outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. A Democratic lawmaker even camped outside Capitol Hill in protest as millions of Americans risked being forced to leave their homes.
Lawmakers said they were blinded by President Joe Biden’s inaction as the midnight Saturday deadline approached, some furious that he called on Congress to provide a last-minute solution to protect tenants. The rare split between the president and his party had potential lasting political ramifications.
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Sunday Democrats were to “call a spade a spade” after the deadline expired.
“We cannot in good faith blame the Republican Party when House Democrats have a majority,” the progressive MP said on CNN’s “State of the Union”.
Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats joined Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., Saturday night and Sunday night as Bush camped outside Capitol Hill. “I have no plans to leave until some type of change occurs,” said Bush, although the House has already left for its August vacation.
More than 3.6 million Americans are at risk of deportation, some within days. The moratorium was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention amid the COVID-19 crisis when jobs changed and many workers lost income.
Democrats piled up in frustration.
Representative Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Chair of the Financial Services Committee, said on CNN on Saturday: “We thought the White House was in charge.”
“We are only hours away from a fully preventable housing crisis,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Said during a speech in a rare Saturday session as Senators worked on a set of infrastructures.
“We have the tools and we have the funding,” Warren said. “What we need is time.”
The eviction ban was aimed at preventing the spread of the virus by people put on the streets and in shelters. Congress approved nearly $ 47 billion in federal housing assistance to states during the pandemic, but it has been slow to reach owed tenants and landlords.
The day before the ban expired, Biden called on local governments to “take all possible measures” to immediately disburse the funds.
“There can be no excuse for a state or a locality not to speed up funds for homeowners and tenants who have been injured during this pandemic,” he said in a statement Friday night.
Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, echoed the sentiment Sunday on Fox News Channel. “No landlord should evict without asking for this rent assistance, and states and communities need to urgently withdraw this money, and they can do it,” Deese said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged House Democrats in a letter on Saturday night to verify how the money already allocated has been distributed so far in their own states and communities. She said the Treasury Department, which transferred the funds earlier in the year, offered to brief lawmakers next week.
Biden started the rush by announcing Thursday that he would allow the ban on deportation to expire instead of challenging a recent Supreme Court ruling saying it would be the last deadline.
The White House has made it clear that Biden would have liked to extend the federal moratorium on evictions due to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. But there were also concerns that the court challenge could lead to a ruling restricting the administration’s ability to respond to future public health crises.
In a 5-4 vote at the end of June, the Supreme Court authorized the continuation of the general ban on deportation until the end of July. One of the members of the majority, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, has made it clear that he will block any further extensions unless there is “clear and specific authorization from Congress.”
Biden, heeding the court’s warning, called on Congress on Thursday to quickly pass legislation to extend the date.
In the race to respond, Democrats scrambled to draft a bill and rally votes. Pelosi implored his colleagues to pass a law extending the deadline, calling it a “moral imperative,” to protect tenants as well as landlords who must be compensated.
Waters quickly produced a bill that would require the CDC to maintain the ban until December 31. In a hastily organized hearing Friday morning to consider the bill, she urged her colleagues to act.
But Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers from Washington, the leading Republican on another panel dealing with the issue, said the Democrats’ bill was rushed.
“This is not the way to legislate,” she said.
The owners are against any extension. They too are pleading for an acceleration in the distribution of rent aid.
The National Apartment Association and several others this week filed a federal lawsuit seeking $ 26 billion in damages due to the impact of the moratorium.
Despite behind-the-scenes bickering throughout the day on Friday, Democratic lawmakers had questions and concerns and were unable to muster their support to extend the ban.
Revising emergency legislation to shorten the deportation deadline to Oct. 18, in line with federal COVID-19 guidelines, has drawn a few other lawmakers in favor – but still not enough for adoption.
House Democrats tried to approve an extension by consent, without a formal vote, but House Republicans opposed it.
Democratic lawmakers were furious at the prospect of evictions amid a burgeoning pandemic.
Bush, who experienced homelessness as a young mother of two in her twenties, said at the time she was working a low-paying job.
“I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what I’ve been through, ever,” said Bush, now 45, wiping away tears. “I don’t care about the circumstances, so I’m going to fight now that I can do something about it.”
Waters said House leaders should have forced a vote and Biden should not have let warnings from a Supreme Court judge prevent him from taking executive action to prevent the evictions.
“The president should have moved on,” Waters said. She has vowed to try to re-pass the bill when lawmakers return from a break.
Some places are likely to see peaks of evictions from Monday, while other jurisdictions will see an increase in the number of court cases that will result in evictions over several months.
The administration tries to keep the tenants in place by other means. It released more than $ 1.5 billion in rent assistance in June, helping nearly 300,000 households. The Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs extended their moratoriums on foreclosure-related evictions of households living in federally insured single-family homes on Friday evening, after Biden asked them to do it.
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Associated Press editors Mary Clare Jalonick, Alexandra Jaffe, Mark Sherman, and Alan Fram contributed to this report.
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