The issue of rent payments being waived is once again front and center.
The CDC never had the authority and still does not have the authority to waive rent payments. It’s why Congress is scrambling to do something.
Here is an article from heritage.org that does a great job of explaining why.
From the article:
The CDC claims that Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act and its implementing regulation grant it this sweeping authority. The agency’s interpretation here is fundamentally flawed and stretches its power far beyond what the text permits.
To stop the spread of a disease, the Public Health Service Act grants the CDC the power of “inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated … and other measures, as in [the Surgeon General’s] judgment may be necessary” for “purposes of carrying out and enforcing … regulations” that “in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases” into the United States or across state lines.
The law doesn’t mention a nationwide eviction ban, and the reference to “other measures” is no help. A basic canon of statutory construction—known as the “ejusdem generis” (Latin for “of the same kind”) rule—is that when a broad, vague term follows a list of specifics, that term must refer only to the same sort of things listed before it.
If the CDC can claim that broad of power under such general language, then they can do anything.