House Leadership calls on White House to extend eviction moratorium

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest of House Democratic leadership have called on the White House to extend the eviction moratorium that expired over the weekend.

Ms Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, House Majority Whip James Clyburn and Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark asked the White House to extend the eviction moratorium until 18 October, 2021.

“On Thursday, the president asked Congress to pass an extension of the eviction moratorium,” the statement said. “Sadly, it is clear that the Senate is not able to do so, and any legislation in the House, therefore, will not be sufficient to extend the moratorium.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the moratorium in place in September and it expired on 31 July. Ms Pelosi had already called on the CDC to extend the moratorium over the weekend and asserted that the centre had unilateral authority.

“That is why House leadership is calling on the Administration to immediately extend the moratorium,” the statement said. “As the CDC doubles down on mask-wearing and vaccination efforts, science and reason demand that they must also extend the moratorium in light of the delta variant.”

The White House’s deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Friday that the Supreme Court had noted that the moratorium could only be extended through an act of Congress.

“That was their decision. That’s how they were able to strike it down, and that’s what they said needed to happen,” she said.

The statement comes as progressive Democrats such as Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman of New York as well as Cori Bush of Missouri hosted a protest calling on Congress to extend the eviction moratorium as the House left for August recess.

Rep Jim McGovern, chairman of the rules committee, said at a rally on Saturday evening that there weren’t enough Democratic votes to pass the eviction moratorium.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez also criticised House Democratic leadership on Saturday for adjourning with a 24-hour return notice for the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure package and said leadership could return everyone to Washington.