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Steve Simpson: Ending CDC Eviction Ban Victory For Rule of Law

Steve Simpson: Ending CDC Eviction Ban Victory For Rule of Law

Mar 11, 2021 | Politics

From Pacific Legal Foundation:
  • Congress did not authorize the CDC to ban evictions, and the Constitution’s separation of powers does not allow the CDC to make law.
  • Government cannot foist the economic burdens of the pandemic on a single group, landlords who solve the very problem that the government is concerned about: providing housing so that people can socially distance.
A federal judge ruled today that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its authority in issuing a nationwide eviction ban. The ruling is a victory for a group of Ohio landlords and the National Association of Home Builders, who challenged the moratorium in October.Today’s decision in Skyworks v. Centers for Disease Control allows evictions to resume, restoring the landlords’ rights to remove tenants who don’t honor their lease obligation to pay rent.“This is a victory for the rule of law,” said Steve Simpson, a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented the landlords. “This decision makes clear that federal agencies can’t exercise power Congress has not given them. Now our clients no longer have to provide housing for free.”Judge Philip Calabrese’s declaratory judgment held that the CDC lacks the statutory authority to promulgate the eviction ban, writing,
“Without question, effective pandemic response depends on the judgment of reliable science—not political science. But that obvious truism does not empower agencies or their officials to exceed the mandate Congress gives them.”
“If the Capitol Riot was ‘Domestic Terrorism’, Why Wasn’t the BLM Attack on the White House?”

“If the Capitol Riot was ‘Domestic Terrorism’, Why Wasn’t the BLM Attack on the White House?”

Mar 6, 2021 | Politics

That's the simple question asked by Daniel Greenfield at FrontPage:
"If the Capitol Riot was domestic terrorism, then when Black Lives Matter besieged the White House, set fire to its gatehouse and to the Church of Presidents, why wasn't that domestic terrorism? There's no coherent answer, except perhaps Merrick Garland's answer that it happened at night""But the White House is always the center of government. President Trump and his family had to be rushed to the bunker when BLM attacked. Why doesn't that fit Wray and Garland's definition of domestic terrorism?"
And the answer is...  
Governor Andrew Cuomo Deserves Emmy But Not Governorship

Governor Andrew Cuomo Deserves Emmy But Not Governorship

Feb 27, 2021 | Politics

Writes Henry Olsen in an opinion column in the Washington Post on Andrew Cuomo's reign as governor of New York:

"Cuomo, a Democrat, did not incite an insurrection, but his decision to send hospitalized covid-positive seniors back to their nursing homes and assisted-living facilities likely led to the deaths of thousands of people. More than 9,000 people who had tested positive for the coronavirus were sent back to these facilities under Cuomo’s orders. Given what was known even in the early days of the pandemic about covid-19’s transmissibility and the lethal threat it posed to the aged, this was a horrific decision. The state has said that more than 8,600 people died from the virus in nursing homes, many surely infected because of Cuomo’s order. New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a report last month that the true total is thousands higher. That alone should be grounds for his removal from office."

"But it gets worse. The New York Post reported on Thursday that a top aide for the governor, Melissa DeRosa, said while speaking to a group of New York Democratic lawmakers that the Cuomo administration rebuffed earlier requests from the Justice Department and state legislature for updated figures for deaths in nursing homes because of fear of a potential federal investigation. If true, the Cuomo administration authorized a coverup of his activities to avoid potential political, and even legal, exposure."

Volokh: Not Parler’s Job To Block Bad People and Police Viewpoints

Feb 18, 2021 | Politics

Eugene Volokh on why it's not Parler's job to block bad people and police viewpoints :
"Some people complain that Parler doesn't do enough to block bad people who use their service, whether to spread falsehoods or evil ideas or plans for criminal conduct. But I'm skeptical that this should be Parler's job."The post office doesn't stop mailings by print magazine publishers because their magazines contain evil ideas or fake news. (They do investigate some mail frauds, but that's a fairly narrow category, and in any event they do this using governmental law enforcement procedures.)"Telephone companies (landline or cellular) don't cancel the KKK's phone number, or shut down phone service or text messaging service to people whom someone accuses of planning riots. And that's not just a matter of privacy: They don't do this even when the contents of the magazine are well known, or the KKK publicly announces that some phone number is its recruitment line. I think on balance we're better off when the post office and phone companies aren't policing the viewpoints or factual assertions their customers express."Now the post office is generally under a First Amendment obligation not to restrict our mailings (unless our speech has been found to be constitutionally unprotected, generally in some governmental proceeding). Telephone companies are likewise common carriers, who generally are legally barred from canceling service because they don't like what their customers are saying. Parler does have the legal right to police the content of speech that uses their services, just as Twitter has that right."But I don't think it has a moral obligation to do so (just as I don't think Google has a moral obligation to cut off Gmail accounts of people who send messages to friends that someone reports as "misleading" or "defaming," which technically violates Google Terms of Service, or Microsoft has a moral obligation to cut off Outlook accounts of people who "communicat[e] hate speech" or "advocat[e] violence against others"). I think it can reasonably choose to generally leave most content judgments to their users, and enforcement of most laws to law enforcement—just as the legal system has chosen to impose that approach on the post office and phone companies." [Why I'm Happy That We're on Parler" at Reason's The Volokh Conspiracy]
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