Nurses display a ‘Stay at home’ sign in their vehicle during a caravan of nurses asking people to stay home amid a wave of COVID-19 cases in El Paso on November 16, 2020 in El Paso, Texas.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
A Texas federal judge ruled on Thursday night that the national eviction ban that has been in place since September is unconstitutional.
“Although the Covid-19 pandemic persists, the Constitution also persists,” wrote US District Judge John Barker, alongside a group of property managers who argued that the ban exceeds the power of the federal government.
The national eviction moratorium of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was first announced under former President Donald Trump in September 2020. It prohibited the eviction of tenants who were in financial difficulty because of the coronavirus pandemic.
President Joe Biden has since extended the moratorium until March, and the latest stimulus package in progress would keep it in place until September 2021.
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The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The owners criticized the CDC moratorium, saying the government was overtaking its authority and that they could not pay for defaulting tenants. There have also been legal challenges to the moratorium in Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee, although all have been unsuccessful.
Supporters of the ban quickly criticized the decision and feared it would trigger a flood of eviction. The winter storms that led to huge power cuts across Texas will only make matters worse, they say.
“This decision is a major departure from all other district court decisions that upheld the CDC moratorium as constitutional,” said Emily Benfer, visiting professor of law at Wake Forest University.