The Supreme Court yesterday invalidated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new eviction moratorium, ruling that those challenging the moratorium are “virtually certain to succeed on the merits of their argument that the CDC has exceeded its authority.”
By a 6-3 decision, the court upheld a lower court ruling finding that the CDC moratorium was unlawful. The district court ruling had been stayed pending appeals to the Supreme Court. “It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts,” the court opinion said.
The CDC on Aug. 3 suspended evictions through Oct. 3 in counties with “high” or “substantial” levels of transmission, which currently applies to all but a handful of small rural counties. The CDC’s earlier nationwide moratorium expired on July 31. The policy had been allowed to continue by a 5-4 decision in the Supreme Court early in July, although one justice voting to permit it said he agreed with the lower court ruling overturning the moratorium but allowed it to continue since it would soon expire.
