"This is a big deal for housing rights and civil rights groups, and a bit of a surprise."
It's a 5-4 decision, with Justice Kennedy joining the majority and writing the opinion.
This is the first opinion of the day, and since the opinions are announced in order of the seniority of the author of the majority opinion, that means only cases authored by Kennedy, Scalia, or Roberts will be announced today.
Here's the PDF of the opinion.
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I guess this means that quotas are back, in spite of the saying statistical evidence alone is not enough, it has to be "arbitrary".
As Alito says, "The Fair Housing Act does not create disparate-impact liability, nor do this Court’s precedents . . . Because Congress did not authorize any of this . . ."
But then, what do law, precedent, and Congressional authorization matter in this day and age?
As I recall, Louis XVI dismissed M. Necker twice, the second time just as the Revolution was beginning.
Roberts has good precedent.
White man's burden and all that.
Soon, if the federal housing push is to be fully implemented. If I build a house, I will have to build a second house for the low-income residents. Or be forced to rent/give a room to the homeless.
So essentially they want all housing to cost more to fund minority activist lifestyles (through lawsuits). This is a common theme. The financial "reform" bill passed after the financial crisis included a massive new agency to ensure appropriate gender and minority employment in the financial industry. This should be understood as a tax on financial services to support otherwise unemployable left wing political activists.
How is it different from Pigford?
This an example of how socialism hollows out the middle class. Communities will have high-end homes and low-end homes. Much less in the middle. Increasing the disparity, not lessening it.
I'll believe the Supreme Court truly cares about disparate impact in housing when low income people are moved in next door to them.
This is going to be a horrible decision. Take all those things that you thought the Community Reinvestment Act did in the run-up to the Subprime Loan meltdown and actually make them happen. This is going to crush small single location and regional banks, particularly if they had any lending standards at all.
Can't the put them in Kelo's house? It's still there.
This is, if possible, an even worse decision than the Obamacare one. Once again, law is determined to mean whatever the bureaucracy wishes it to mean and the words of the statute are meaningless. That's life in our once great republic.
"Communities will have high-end homes and low-end homes. Much less in the middle. Increasing the disparity, not lessening it."
I live in the eastern LA suburbs these days. Contractors aren't building in the middle anymore anyhow around here. Every new development is either very pricey condos or mcmansions. The only middle-end homes available are those build mid-20th century or earlier.
I suggest people read the decision before declaring that the sky is falling. It seems to say that, yes, disparate impact can be the basis for a suit. But that courts need to look really close at such claims and identify what process is causing the disparate impact and correct only that cause. It is very explicit in saying that it is not a justification for quotas.
Xmas,
I agree. Yet more seeds planted for the next housing crisis.
It would also appear to put the lie to whichever of the justices predicted a 25 year end date to affirmative action. You can't believe that and affirm disparate impact at the same time. Yet another SC decision supporting goverment doing what it wanted to do anyway. I'm surprised they reigned in the EPA as much as they did a year or two ago.
DougWeber said...
It is very explicit in saying that it is not a justification for quotas.
The court case allowing race preferences if they are claimed necessary for diversity also explicitly rejects quotas. But that's still what it allowed, so long as everyone uses the word diversity.
The end of the Republic...we now have a runaway SOTUS acting as an untouchable super-legislature..
rhhardin,
The Kelo family had their house moved to another location. All of the remaining houses were torn down. The lots are now a holding area for debris from that hurricane that blew through a few years ago and home to a number of stray cats.
In spite of the believe that quotas won't be used, statistics will be used to measure disparity and "holistic" means will be used to achieve the outcome that will be verified by the statistics. The University of California was smacked for quotas, but they implemented "holistic" admissions processes and achieved the same result.
Words, just words.
Tyranny is just a word too. Soon tyranny will be just another word for freedom.
DougWeber wrote -
"I suggest people read the decision before declaring that the sky is falling. It seems to say that, yes, disparate impact can be the basis for a suit. But that courts need to look really close at such claims and identify what process is causing the disparate impact and correct only that cause. It is very explicit in saying that it is not a justification for quotas."
That sounds like sue first and justify why you're suing later. If there is an illegal process, sue on that basis, and prove it. Don't give "courts" the lattitude to identify what process if any is at work. That's not their area of expertise.
"RIck said...
So essentially they want all housing to cost more to fund minority activist lifestyles (through lawsuits). This is a common theme. The financial "reform" bill passed after the financial crisis included a massive new agency to ensure appropriate gender and minority employment in the financial industry. This should be understood as a tax on financial services to support otherwise unemployable left wing political activists.
How is it different from Pigford?
6/25/15, 9:56 AM"
THIS^^^^^^^^^^
TIme to re-read Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron." Everyone's economic activity has to be handicapped to achieve Justice. And if you're not sure what Justice looks like, no worries. There is a swarm of self-appointed experts down at the courthouse waiting to tell you.
The only way out of this nonsense to to repeal all the damned laws that are being interpreted like this! It's truly depressing.
If it permits lawsuits for disparate impact, however, qualified, it still encourages filing suits, or the threat to file suit, for the purpose of extorting settlements, such as agreeing to quotas, or simply payoffs to plaintiffs and their lawyers/representatives.
It doesn't matter much if the decision is qualified, practically speaking.
The effect of law in the real world is more about its process than its principles.
I live near a Trump golf course. IIRC, one of the homes built there had to go to a low income resident, defined as someone making under $60k a year (approximately ten years ago). That home had to always stay low income. IOW, it couldn't be sold for profit. When the resident moved out, someone else would move in. Another resort down the road chose to make its absurdly overpriced condos into vacation homes only to avoid the low income set aside. IOW, you have to pay a few million, plus monthly fees, but cannot live there full time. The resort will find people to stay ther for you when you are not using it, or you can rent it yourself. I'm not sure if you can leave it vacant. Given the two options having a low income "percentage" is more humane and reasonable IMO, not to mention that every non-low income family in the area had their kids applying for that house.
It strikes me that the result of this decision will be to reduce the availability of low income housing to minorities. More tax credits will be allocated to the suburbs and to neighborhoods with higher median incomes. Lots of people can qualify for renting these affordable units (I recently worked on a project involving tax credit housing, and the waiting lists at the developments were either two years long or completely closed). Unless renters from the low income minority neighborhoods where they used to get the credits are extremely mobile and wide-ranging in their search for housing (e.g. not constrained by distance to work, etc.) then fewer minorities will get tax credit housing overall. More of the benefits will go to white peopel (quel horreur!)
Communities will have high-end homes and low-end homes. Much less in the middle. Increasing the disparity, not lessening it.
Yes, McMansions for the upper mids, HUD housing and Section 8 for the poors. Got bad credit, bad rental record, criminal history? To the trailer court with you, with all the other losers. Or camped out down by the river, if the cops will leave you alone.
And golly, why can't we bring an end to homelessness - ?
Presumption or inferred guilt. We really should have demanded they qualify "progress" or monotonic change. It's intrinsic character is similar to generational or progressive liberalism that is a degenerative ideology.
DougWeber said...
I suggest people read the decision before declaring that the sky is falling. It seems to say that, yes, disparate impact can be the basis for a suit. But that courts need to look really close at such claims and identify what process is causing the disparate impact and correct only that cause. It is very explicit in saying that it is not a justification for quotas.
Now looks at our DOJ and repeat that again.
look
AS a landlord with 8 rental units for the past 11 years, I have never obtained nor kept racial data of my tenants. The race of a tenant has never been of any interest to me as a landlord. And why should race be of any interest to me, when ability to pay rent (i.e., income & credit history) and ability to live in the rental unit without destroying it (i.e., past rental history) are really the only relevant issues for me as a landlord?
And now I can be sued (at least in theory) by someone who didn't get an apartment, because I don't have racial info on my tenants for the past decade plus?
I would not know how to assign races to people, unless they were willing to demonstrate to me a government-accepted racial classification such as on their IRS 1040s or passports or drivers' licenses, and even then I would have no idea how to determine the classification for rental purposes of married couples or roommates not of identical hues, and their offspring and relatives living with them.
Can I get credit for not caring what color anyone is? Or is that asking too much?
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