The CDC’s September order banning evictions amid the pandemic cited a 1944 public health law giving the agency certain powers to prevent communicable diseases from crossing state lines. The Biden government recently extended the moratorium to June.
“The federal government cannot say that it has ever before exercised its power over trade between states to impose a moratorium on residential evictions,” U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker wrote in the decision.
“It did not do so during the deadly Spanish flu pandemic,” Campbell said. Nor did it call for such a force during the distress of the Great Depression. At no point during our Nation’s history has the federal government claimed such power until last year. ”
Barker, a nominee for President Donald Trump, also said that the government’s justification for the ban under the trade clause of the Constitution was open: the view of an agency on ‘fairness,’ ‘he wrote.
The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal on Saturday.
Boynton noted that Congress had signed the ban in its statement on the appeal.
“The CDC’s eviction moratorium, which was extended by Congress in December last year, protects many tenants who are unable to pay their monthly payments due to job loss or health care expenses,” he said. “By preventing people from becoming homeless or moving into more crowded housing, the moratorium is helping to slow down the spread of Covid-19.”