Biden administration defends COVID-19 eviction ban against challenge to Supreme Court

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The Biden administration Monday defended its extended ban on many evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in a Supreme Court challenge.

The White House filed the response to Chief Justice John Roberts in a case brought by an Alabama Realtors group that seeks to strike down the ban.

“The CDC has warned that the public health consequences of an increase of evictions at this time would be very difficult to reverse,” Acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher argued.

Roberts will now decide whether to grant the request to end the ban or refer the case to the entire court.

Biden extended the ban at the beginning of August. He tweaked it to include only counties with a “substantial spread” of the pandemic, which covers about 90% of Americans.

Real estate agents say the ban by the Centers for Disease Control is a dramatic overreach that is costing them millions in fees. They say it is an economic policy decision that has little to do with public health.

A federal judge in the Washington, D.C., circuit agreed, striking down the ban but opted to withhold her ruling while the government appealed.

The Supreme Court voted by a 5-4 margin to keep the ban in place temporarily, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh noting at the time that it was due to expire at the end of July.

The entire court may now revisit that ruling, considering whether the partial targeting of the eviction ban makes it more justifiable.

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