Supreme Court says drop dead to 11 million tenants

We have to fight back!

Six judges on the U.S. Supreme Court have overturned the federal ban on evictions. The Aug. 26 ruling threatens to throw 11 million families — with 30 million people — into the street.

The Alabama Association of Realtors that petitioned the court to overturn the eviction ban represents the same bigots who fought fair housing laws in the 1960s.

A moratorium on evictions and foreclosures was enacted by Congress in 2020 during the worst capitalist economic crisis since the Great Depression. Over 30 million people were made jobless while the coronavirus was killing hundreds of thousands of people.

Millions are still jobless and can’t pay the rent or mortgage. Yet Congress let the absolutely necessary ban on evictions lapse.

It was only because of mass outrage — and a 5-day sit-in led by Representative Cori Bush — that forced the Biden Administration to act. The Centers for Disease Control issued a ban on evictions citing the new surge of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

As a public health agency, the CDC had every right to do this. Overcrowded housing is one the biggest reasons that the coronavirus death rate for Black, Indigenous and Latinx people is nearly three times the national average.

The six most reactionary judges on the high court claim that only Congress has the right to ban evictions, not the CDC. That’s just an excuse to attack poor and working people.

In the 2013 case of Shelby County v. Holder, three of these judges voted to throw out a key provision of the Voting Rights Act passed by Congress. The three judges appointed since then would have agreed.

The recent Supreme Court action is as repulsive as its notorious pro-slavery 1857 Dred Scott ruling. It says in effect that “tenants have no right that landlords need respect.”

It echoes past court rulings that upheld child labor and union busting. It was the struggle of the people that overturned these obscene legal decisions.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal rightfully declared that extending the eviction moratorium “is a matter of life and death.” Congress must reinstate the moratorium.

We can’t wait for Congress to act. We need to answer the landlords and banksters as we did last year when 26 million marched to demand justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. Black Lives Matter!

When the sheriffs come to throw a family out of their home, a wall of people has to come to prevent it. Just like the wall of moms protected anti-racist protesters from the cops last year in Portland, Oregon.

The power of the people can beat back the big real estate interests — the landlords, realtors, banks — and their judges. Stop evictions and home foreclosures; defend the right to housing for all.