SAN FRANCISCO — The conservative-majority Supreme Court handed Democratic leaders like California Gov. Gavin Newsom a major win Friday by allowing them to remove tent encampments as homelessness has become a top concern of voters.
The 6-3 decision reversed a lower court ruling that severely limited how local leaders can respond as tents pitched in parks, under freeways and across sidewalks became increasingly ubiquitous symbols of the crisis.
The justices overturned the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision upholding a 2020 lower court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson that invalidated a southern Oregon city’s anti-camping ordinances. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, concluded that the power to decide how to address homelessness largely rests with local officials.
“A handful of federal judges cannot begin to ‘match’ the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding ‘how best to handle’ a pressing social question like homelessness,” Gorsuch wrote .