U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet says he’s moving forward with legislation we’ve dubbed the “Squatters Bill of Rights,” that won’t actually protect anyone from getting evicted for not paying rent, but will raise the cost of housing if enacted.

Liberals are applauding the effort, which is confusing to us because it’s core is a national database to track evictions. Has someone alerted the ACLU about this? Because if we fell on hard times, we sure wouldn’t want our troubles collected and disseminated to God knows who just so bureaucrats can better understand our problem.

Bennet says they need the database because they are working “blindly” to solve the problem of evictions.

We can solve that issue without a database, it happens when people don’t pay the rent or break the lease rules.

But no, Bennet also wants taxpayer-paid lawyers to represent people who don’t pay rent or break rules, so they can’t get evicted.

But increased legal representation is not a panacea for tenants, warned Mark Windhager, president of the Colorado Apartment Association.

“Most evictions are for non-payment of rent and attorney expenses would simply pull more from the already burdened resident,” Windhager said in a statement.

Windhager also warned that if evictions become more costly for landlords, it will result in rents being raised for all. He said the best way to prevent evictions is to increase the number of affordable units available.

Certainly a flooded housing market would reduce rent costs. However, the reduction of evictions, except maybe in rare circumstances, is on the tenant.