On Thursday, the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration from enforcing the latest eviction moratorium imposed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) over the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The CDC’s moratorium was originally slated to expire on December 31, 2020,” the Justices wrote in their ruling. “But Congress extended it for one month as part of the second COVID–19 relief Act. As the new deadline approached, the CDC again took matters into its own hands, extending its moratorium through March, then again through June, and ultimately through July.”
The 1944 public health law the CDC was drawing its power from “has rarely been invoked—and never before to justify an eviction moratorium. Regulations under this authority have generally been limited to quarantining infected individuals and prohibiting the import or sale of animals known to transmit disease. (banning small turtles known to be carriers of salmonella).”
SCOTUSblog reported, “The decision on the eviction moratorium was a decisive rebuke for the Biden administration, with the majority writing that it ‘strains credulity to believe’ that the public-health law at the center of the case gives the Centers for Disease Control the power to enact the moratorium. ‘If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue,’ the court stressed, ‘Congress must specifically authorize it.’”
In response to the ruling, the Biden administration released a statement that listed entities it urged to stop evictions – Congress was noticeably absent from the list.
“In light of the Supreme Court ruling and the continued risk of COVID-19 transmission, President Biden is once again calling on all entities that can prevent evictions – from cities and states to local courts, landlords, Cabinet Agencies – to urgently act to prevent evictions,” the statement said.
