FEDERAL HOUSING: LAYING DOWN THE LAW

It's not often that one of the U.S. Supreme Court term's most
controversial cases is also one of the easiest to decide.

That's the case in the Department of Housing and Urban Development vs.
Rucker -- the test of whether it's legal for federal housing officials
to evict tenants for illegal drug activity by anyone in their sphere
of influence.

By an 8-0 vote, the justices said the government can indeed enforce
the 1988 law in question, challenged by four tenants of the Oakland
(Calif.) Housing Authority.

It is an undoubtedly harsh and, arguably, unprecedentedly broad law.
But neither the law, nor the leases signed by the Oakland tenants, are
vague.

The law prescribes that each "public housing agency shall utilize
leases ... providing that ... any drug-related criminal activity on or
off (federally assisted low-income housing) premises, engaged in by a
public housing tenant, any member of the tenant's household, or any
guest or other person under the tenant's control, shall be cause for
termination of tenancy."

Accordingly, the lease itself required the tenants to "assure that the
tenant, any member of the household, a guest, or another person under
the tenant's control, shall not engage in ... any drug-related
criminal activity on or near the premises."

So, while the law is harsh and the outcome stark -- that otherwise
innocent people can be evicted from federal housing due to drug use by
relatives and guests -- it is nonetheless as clear as day.

And by a unanimous decision -- issued little more than a month after
hearing arguments in the case -- the highest court in the land has
said it is quite legal.

The court said the "plain language" of the law "unambiguously" gives
housing officials the discretion to evict tenants of housing connected
in any way to drug activity.

Is it good policy? Certainly it's a good idea to empower landlords to
clean up drug houses. But the case also highlights how problematic it
is for the government to be a landlord. It's messy business to be
empowering an entity that already has so much power.

In addition, it won't take too many perceived injustices -- i.e.,
innocent grandmothers on the street -- to convince folks that Congress
went too far in its zeal to rid federal housing of its massive drug
problem.

Yet, as Supreme Court cases go, this one was a slam
dunk.

The key will be whether housing officials abide by the City of
Character "Word of the Month" for March.

Discretion.