Congresswoman and “squad” member Rashida Tlaib, while vocally calling for the cancellation of rent and casting a negative light on landlords, was reportedly seeing rental checks from her own tenants to the tune of “up to $100,000” during the COVID19 panic.
The Michigan lawmaker’s most recently filed annual financial disclosures on Thursday showed that she collected at least $15,000 and up to $50,000 in rental income from a Detroit property she owns in 2021, according to disclosures revealed by Fox News. Even more surprisingly: The rental income for the same property in August 2020 was the same.
In December 2021 Tlaib tweeted:
This is what the American people will feel tonight: “we have billions of your tax dollars for corporate meal expenses and a racist border wall—but only scraps for those struggling to pay for food, rent, and healthcare.”
It’s disgraceful.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) December 22, 2020
Added up: The rent from that single property totals anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 during the two years of COVID in Michigan, where Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer enacted some of the harshest lockdowns in the nation.
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During the same period, Tlaib alongside fellow “squad” legislators like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Cori Bush of Missouri heavily pushed efforts to “cancel” rent, leaving landlords in the lurch, saddled with properties running in the net negative, with a bill designed to “institute a nationwide cancellation of rents and home mortgage payments through the duration of the coronavirus pandemic.”
In another potentially self-referential tweet, Tlaib wrote:
Landlord: Rent is due.
Congress: “It’s okay. We have a vaccine coming.”
Landlord: Sends eviction notice.
Congress: ? ✊? https://t.co/h3c9XTYEij
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) December 5, 2020
In August 2021, Killian Laverty of FreedomWorks wrote that “After a pressure campaign led by squad member Rep. Cori Bush, Biden used his executive authority to extend the Center for Disease Control eviction moratorium despite significant constitutional concerns. Biden himself even admitted repeatedly that he lacked the authority to further extend the moratorium following a recent Supreme Court ruling — before following through with it anyway.”
Do you think this bill ever had a chance?
Laverty explained that Omar later wrote and introduced a bill co-sponsored by Tlaib, H.R. 1847, the Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act, that would have codified the cancellation of rental payments nationwide all the way until April 2022.
FreedomWorks found that Tlaib was not the only “squad” member who was benefiting from a rental income stream. Pressley was also collecting between $5,000 and $15,000 in rent during the same period of 2021.
H.R. 1847 subsequently died in committee — it was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services and failed to be considered.
According to the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Pressley, Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez, all sat on the Financial Services Committee in 2021, which was chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters.
Here’s a short summary from the text of the bill:
- “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the obligation of each tenant household of a covered rental dwelling unit to pay rent for occupancy in such dwelling unit shall be suspended with respect to such occupancy during the COVID-19 suspension period.”
- “No tenant or tenant household may be charged a fine or fee for nonpayment of rent in accordance with paragraph (1) and such nonpayment of rent shall not be grounds for any termination of tenancy or eviction.”
- “No tenant or tenant household may be treated as accruing any debt by reason of suspension of contribution of rent under paragraph (1).”
- “No tenant or tenant household may be held liable for repayment of any amount of rent contribution suspended under paragraph (1).”
- “The nonpayment of rent by a tenant or tenant household shall not be reported to a consumer reporting agency nor shall such nonpayment adversely affect a tenant or member of a tenant household’s credit score.”
Similar restrictions were to be placed on mortgages, but would nonetheless ultimately leave landlords with a rapidly depreciating asset, that they are legally responsible for the maintenance of, with no capacity for recouping their operating losses due to maintenance or other causes.
Notably, this bill failed to be heard in committee or be considered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives despite Democrats holding control of both committee and House agendas and possessing a commanding majority in both.
