It should've been 9-0, but we'll take it.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 6-3 against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) eviction moratorium (a.k.a. bureaucratic tyranny). The newest moratorium was set to last through Oct. 3!
"If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it," the majority opinion reads.
You know, it'd be nice if the Supreme Court just said that there should never be any such thing as a "federally imposed eviction moratorium." But, again, we'll take it (I guess).
"It would be one thing if Congress had specifically authorized the action that the CDC has taken. But that has not happened," the opinion reads. "Instead, the CDC has imposed a nationwide moratorium on evictions in reliance on a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination. It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts."
[...]
"When the eviction moratorium expired in July, Congress did not renew it. Concluding that further action was needed, the CDC decided to do what Congress had not."
Later in the opinion, the majority wrote about how "the Government's read of §361(a) would give the CDC a breathtaking amount of authority."
For reference, §361(a) is the aforementioned "decades-old statute that authorizes [the CDC] to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination."
"It is hard to see what measures this interpretation would place outside the CDC's reach, and the Government has identified no limit in §361(a) beyond the requirement that the CDC deem a measure 'necessary,'" the majority opinion reads.
Gee, it would've been pretty neat to hear these arguments, and receive this kind of ruling like a year and a half ago, am I right?!
"Could the CDC, for example, mandate free grocery delivery to the homes of the sick or vulnerable? Require manufacturers to provide free computers to enable people to work from home? Order telecommunications companies to provide free high-speed Internet service to facilitate remote work? This claim of expansive authority under §361(a) is unprecedented," the majority opinion reads.
Unprecedented, you say? When have the wonderful bureaucrats ever cared about lack of precedent when it's not in their favor?
"The moratorium has put the applicants, along with millions of landlords across the country, at risk of irreparable harm by depriving them of rent payments with no guarantee of eventual recovery," the majority opinion reads.
"Despite the CDC's determination that landlords should bear a significant financial cost of the pandemic, many landlords have modest means. And preventing them from evicting tenants who breach their leases intrudes on one of the most fundamental elements of property ownership—the right to exclude."
[...]
"It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of the COVID–19 Delta variant, the majority opinion reads. "But our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends."
Miss me with that "Delta Variant" panic. However, I'll take gladly take that second sentence of the Supreme Court telling the CDC to not "act unlawfully."
Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor were the three dissenting opinions.
"First, it is far from 'demonstrably' clear that the CDC lacks the power to issue its modified moratorium order," the dissenting opinion reads.
"Second, the balance of equities strongly favors leaving the stay in place. Applicants say they have lost 'thousands of dollars' in rental income. [...] But compare that injury to the irreparable harm from vacating the stay. COVID–19 transmission rates have spiked in recent weeks, reaching levels that the CDC puts as high as last winter: 150,000 new cases per day."
"Third, the public interest is not favored by the spread of disease or a court's second-guessing of the CDC's judgment. [...] The public interest strongly favors respecting the CDC's judgment at this moment."
Thank God a majority of the court does not agree with that last sentence. Even so, the second paragraph is pretty scary...
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
