Treasury Secretary Yellen to meet with House Democrats as anger builds over eviction moratorium - The Washington Post

The rift between the White House and House Democrats over the expiration of the eviction moratorium escalated on Tuesday as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ruled out bringing lawmakers back from recess to address the issue through new legislation.

On a private call with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and House Democrats, Pelosi said the consensus of the caucus was that the House should not come back from its recess and that lawmakers should focus on urging the Biden administration to extend the moratorium unilaterally, two people familiar with the conversation said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a discussion that was meant to remain private.

The Biden administration has said it does not have the legal authority to extend the moratorium, and pushed Congress to pass an extension. But even if an extension were to pass the House, the measure is almost certain to fail in the Senate, given that Democrats would need 10 Senate Republicans to support the effort to overcome the filibuster. Republicans are expected to uniformly oppose extending the moratorium.

The expiration of the moratorium has put millions of primarily poor renters at risk of eviction while opening up a rare public clash between the White House and its congressional Democratic allies. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chair of the financial services committee, joined Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and others in the Tuesday call in asking the Biden administration to extend the moratorium, the people familiar with the conversations aid.

Also on the call, Yellen fielded lawmakers’ questions about delays in disbursing more than $46 billion in emergency rental assistance approved by Congress. Despite the expiration of the moratorium over the weekend, the Treasury Department has struggled to get funding out the door to renters in need — with recent administration estimates suggesting only a fraction of it has been released.

Data from Moody’s has shown more than six million Americans are behind on rent, and local housing organizers fear an uptick in eviction proceedings as the moratorium lapses.

Those animosities are releasing frustrations within the party that President Biden has largely kept in check until now. To liberals, preventing evictions is what the party is all about — helping the disadvantaged when they face daunting odds. For centrists, however, that sort of extended government intervention in the marketplace is economically unwise and politically perilous.

White House official Gene Sperling told reporters on Monday that the administration was pushing state and local officials to enact their own eviction moratoriums, as well as pushing federal agencies such as the Agriculture Department to extend eviction moratoriums where possible. Sperling also announced an “all-agency review” to learn why state and local governments are not getting funding out.

It is not clear how much more the Treasury Department can do to accelerate the distribution of funding.

“States and cities need at least another couple months to get this money out, and there’s no sticks or carrots Treasury can wield to make that happen faster. What we need is time,” said Paul Williams, a housing expert and fellow at the nonprofit Jain Family Institute and the author of an analysis on the current crisis.

Williams said he has spoken with officials from several city governments who are doing essentially everything they can to get the federal funding out but face constraints that made accelerating the funding impossible.

“There’s no stick you can beat them with to make them go faster. They’re limited by technical and staff capacity to actually get this done,” Williams said.

Pelosi on Monday reiterated in a letter that she believes the moratorium should be extended unilaterally.

“We will not relent until families and landlords have been protected from this crisis,” Pelosi said.

The House adjourned on Friday for a six-week vacation after trying and failing to approve the moratorium through “unanimous consent,” a process that allows any one member of the House to defeat the attempt.

While blaming the Supreme Court, some experts believe the administration should still try to fight for the moratorium in court. They note Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s concurrence — written before the delta variant renewed fears about the impact of the coronavirus on renters — also pointed to the need to get rental relief disbursed.

“The Kavanaugh opinion was premised on rent relief getting out,” said Julia Raifman, a poverty expert and researcher at Boston University. “So the [administration] could have tried to make an argument to make that the justification for extending the moratorium.”

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Treasury Secretary Yellen to meet with House Democrats as anger builds over eviction moratorium - The Washington Post
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