The CDC can’t continue to ignore the law

Despite Biden administration officials admitting publicly that there isn’t a legal basis for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue an eviction moratorium, the CDC went ahead and issued one anyway. Whatever one thinks about the merits of an eviction moratorium, it’s wrong for the federal government and the CDC to exceed their legal authority.

“To date, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and her team have been unable to find legal authority for a new, targeted eviction moratorium,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday.

This plain-English statement was underscored by Biden advisor Gene Sperling, who made perfectly clear that finding this out has been a priority of the White House.

“The president has not only kicked the tires; he has double, triple, quadruple checked. He has asked the CDC to look at whether you could even do targeted eviction moratorium — that just went to the counties that have higher rates — and they, as well, have been unable to find the legal authority for even new, targeted eviction moratoriums,” said Sperling.

This is consistent with the reasoning of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was the decisive fifth justice who opted to leave the initial moratorium in place.

Kavanaugh decided it was best to leave it in place specifically because it was set to expire July 31.

However, he wrote that “clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31.”

In a rational world, this should have all translated to: If Congress wanted to keep the moratorium in place, it should have voted to do just that.

But then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and other Democratic members of Congress called for an extension to happen anyway since she didn’t think getting it through Congress would be successful, despite Democratic control.

Rep. Maxine Waters, DCalifornia, urged the CDC to just extend the moratorium anyway, saying on Twitter, “Who is going to stop them? Who is going to penalize them?”

And so it happened. Without any identifiable legal authority and with it in mind that a Supreme Court majority is in place willing to strike down the moratorium, the moratorium was extended. This is nonsense. President Joe Biden and the CDC should recognize the limits of their authority and only take actions consistent with their legal authority.

It’s really that simple. If Congress doesn’t want to do its job, that doesn’t justify actions that disregard the law, the separation of powers, private property rights or common sense.