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But Pelosi and the management team are now in their second day of aggressive flogging over the moratorium extension, struggling to convince a group of entrenched refractors including moderates who say the extension should not go beyond September 30. . And several Democrats across the caucus argue that there is no point in forcing a vote when the Senate is unlikely to win 10 Republican votes for the measure.
Democrats ran out of nearly 20 votes by Friday morning and patience was running out as frustration escalated in caucus over staying in Washington without a schedule to vote, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Asked about the matter on Friday, Pelosi essentially gave the Biden administration responsibility for extending the Moratorium on evictions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We’re going to have to find a solution,” Pelosi said. “I think the CDC can do it.”
The renewed plea on Friday morning follows a furious demand Thursday night from House Financial Services President Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Who implored Democrats to try to get the bill passed on the ground when of a tense conversation with Pelosi and his management team. Later Thursday evening, Pelosi sent a moving letter to his colleagues, invoking the gospel of Matthew to emphasize the “responsibility of providing shelter to those in need.”
“In the past 24 hours, a challenge to the conscience of Congress has befallen us as millions of tenant households affected by Covid are threatened with eviction,” Pelosi wrote.
That task got trickier on Friday morning, when Pelosi’s already tight margin narrowed by one vote as Republicans added Tuesday’s special election winner in Texas – Rep. Jake Ellzey – to their conference.
On Friday morning, supporters of the bill, including Waters, were not budging on the length of the extension, insisting the moratorium would last until the end of the year.
Supporters of the law were losing hope that the bill would be passed on Friday before members left town, with a housing activist warning that a decision not to even vote would be “devastating for tenants who already feel abandoned.” .
Homeowners and industrial groups, for their part, quickly mobilized to oppose the bill.
A coalition of 14 industry groups representing real estate owners and operators, developers and mortgage lenders sent a letter to lawmakers Thursday evening urging them to “end nationwide unsustainable federal restrictions on real estate transactions” and focus instead on accelerating the distribution of rental aid.
“The moratorium unfairly shifts economic hardship onto the backs of housing providers who have compromised their own financial futures to provide essential housing to tenants across the country,” wrote the groups, led by the National Association of Realtors.
The ban has been “especially difficult” for mom and pop landlords who provide 40 percent of the nation’s rental housing and who “continue to pay mortgages, taxes, insurance and keep their properties safe for tenants. with less or, in many cases, no rental income, ”they wrote.
The issue of the moratorium on evictions landed in the Democrats’ towers at a time when tensions were already high in the House, with lawmakers clashing in hallways and screaming in hearings amid frustrations over a renewed mask mandate and inquiries on Jan.6
When asked Thursday night if Democrats were running out of votes to extend the moratorium, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) Joked: “You are just a passionate analyst. “
Asked whether Democrats would consider a shorter extension, such as an extension until September, Hoyer said: “There is going to be a lot of talk and we’ll see. We talk about it.”
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