"11:17 Past Milk"*

The CDC’s eviction moratorium is almost certainly illegal, the Editorial Board writes https://t.co/O38mrK8C56

— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) August 4, 2021

Good intentions don’t make a president’s actions constitutional. President Biden concedes his new eviction moratorium is likely illegal, but he’s doing it anyway. Regardless of the issue or which party holds the White House, we must not tolerate lawlessness from the president.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) August 4, 2021

It was wrong for Trump to abuse the powers of his office to build a wall, and it’s wrong for Biden to abuse the powers of his office to extend an eviction moratorium.

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) August 4, 2021

Yeah, it's never that simple:

I think (and have long thought) that the scope of CDC’s authority under section 264 presents some very difficult questions, and there are good arguments on both sides.

I just don’t think the unlawfulness of the moratorium is self-evident — and the DOJ brief helps to explain why.

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) August 4, 2021

§ 264 is, by design, both broad and deliberately vague. The idea was to give the federal government a fair amount of latitude to respond to serious public health crises.

It's hardly obvious that § 264 *includes* eviction moratoria, but it's also not self-evident that it doesn't.

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) August 5, 2021

Instead, it reduces to a technical dispute about how best to interpret a statute that Congress wrote in 1944. Reasonable minds (including #SCOTUS Justices) will differ on what the best answer is. But *that's* where the actual debate is, regardless of what you see on social media.

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) August 5, 2021

My rule of thumb now is, if you see it on social media, especially on Twitter, and it's about law, it probably belongs on Bad Legal Takes.  Of course, I think no small amount of Supreme Court opinions belong there, too.

*Yes, I have to explain.  In my college years I spent a weekend (or two, in the end) on Baylor campus with an old (and still dear) friend.  One night we walked past a notice chalked (IIRC) on the sidewalk, inviting interested new members to come to a meeting of the Noze Brothers that night.  All I remember now of the notice was the time:  "11:17 Past Milk."  Inferring the baby freshman needed their nightly glass of milk, but also indicating the hour was not before lunch.  Just as I wrote this last night for posting this morning, I noted the time of the post was:  11:17 PM.  So I couldn't resist.  Gotta grab the serendipity where you can.