Since the federal government isn’t currently paying its bills during the shutdown, Senate Democrats think federal workers shouldn’t have to either.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D–Hawaii) and 17 of his Democratic Senate colleagues have introduced a bill that would relieve federal workers and contractors from their obligations to pay rent, mortgages, insurance premiums, and student loan payments during shutdowns.
The bill would also stay eviction and foreclosure proceedings for 30 days after a shutdown ends. Anyone who tries to carry out an eviction or foreclosure of a federal worker or contractor during that time would be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to fines or even jail time.
“Right now, hundreds of thousands of federal workers, federal contractor employees, and their families don’t know whether they’ll be able to pay rent and make ends meet. Our bill will protect these workers and make sure they aren’t harmed during this shutdown,” said Schatz.
To be sure, this bill is mostly signaling.
Politically, Republicans are not going to advance legislation that would reduce pressure on Democrats to vote to reopen the government.
Practically, the protections it would offer federal workers are unnecessary, at least in the housing context.
It would be odd, and indeed irrational, for a landlord to evict an otherwise good tenant if they miss a full rent payment during a government shutdown that will, in all likelihood, end in a few weeks. That’s particularly true given that government workers are guaranteed back pay once a shutdown ends.
Pursuing an eviction in that context would require a landlord to kick out a tenant who’s going to start paying their bills again soon, and instead incur the costs of the eviction itself, turning over the unit, and finding a new tenant.
Clearly, the reasonable thing to do would be for landlords and their current tenants to work out a deal in such circumstances. We have plenty of evidence that that’s what happens even during even more severe economic shocks.
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdowns put a lot of people out of work. Contrary to the predictions of activists, this did not produce a mass wave of evictions—either before or after eviction moratoriums were put in place, and even when promised federal rental assistance was hard to access.
By and large, tenants paid their bills with what funds they had, and landlords worked out deals about how to cover any shortfall.
Hellbound and Down 