S-470-119
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Sponsored by Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS)
What it does
This bill would amend Section 4024 of the CARES Act by striking subsection (c), which currently requires landlords of properties with federally backed mortgages or participating in federal housing assistance programs to provide tenants at least 30 days' notice before filing an eviction for nonpayment of rent. Removing this subsection would eliminate that federal notice requirement, leaving eviction notice timelines entirely to state and local law. The bill does not affect any other CARES Act housing provisions.
Who benefits
Landlords and property owners with federally backed mortgages who would regain flexibility to follow only their state's eviction notice rules, which in some states are shorter than 30 days. Property management companies operating across multiple states who would face one fewer federal compliance requirement. States with longer existing notice requirements would see no practical change. Landlords in states with notice periods shorter than 30 days would benefit most directly.
Who is hurt
Tenants in federally backed rental housing located in states where state law requires fewer than 30 days' notice before eviction proceedings — they would lose the federal floor of protection. Low-income renters are disproportionately represented in federally backed housing (e.g., properties with FHA-insured or GSE-backed mortgages) and may have fewer resources to relocate quickly. Tenant advocacy organizations that have relied on the 30-day federal standard as a baseline protection. Renters in states with weak or no state-level notice requirements would be most directly affected.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that eviction notice requirements are traditionally a matter of state and local law, and that the CARES Act provision — enacted as a temporary pandemic emergency measure — was never intended to become a permanent federal override of state landlord-tenant law. They contend that the Tenth Amendment reserves land use and property law to the states, and that a uniform federal 30-day mandate creates unnecessary regulatory friction for landlords in states that have already calibrated their own notice periods to local housing market conditions.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue that the 30-day federal notice requirement provides a critical baseline protection for the most economically vulnerable renters — those in federally subsidized or federally backed housing — who may need adequate time to find alternative housing and avoid homelessness. They contend that removing this floor without replacing it with any alternative standard could expose tenants in states with minimal notice requirements to abrupt displacement, and that federal involvement in housing through mortgage backing creates a corresponding federal responsibility to protect tenants in those properties.
Constitutional context
Land use and landlord-tenant law are traditionally reserved to states under the Tenth Amendment, but Congress has broad authority to attach conditions to federally backed mortgage programs under the Commerce Clause (Art. I, §8, cl. 3), which underpins the Fair Housing Act and related federal housing statutes. No active constitutional tension exists here — this bill removes a federal requirement rather than imposing one, which raises no novel constitutional question.
Checks and balances
Congress holds authority over conditions attached to federal housing programs; removing this requirement shifts eviction notice authority back to state legislatures and local governments, with no new federal oversight mechanism created.
Historical precedent
The CARES Act (2020) originally enacted the 30-day notice requirement as part of a broader set of temporary eviction protections during the COVID-19 pandemic; courts subsequently debated whether portions of the eviction moratorium exceeded federal authority, though the notice requirement itself was not the primary subject of those challenges.