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The CDC’s Potentially Unconstitutional Actions Extend Beyond Our Ports
Bottom Line: As we await a ruling in the state of Florida’s lawsuit against the CDC over their issuance of a “no sail” order, the CDC’s continuing to issue edicts. On Tuesday, the CDC announced a ban of the importing of dogs from 100 countries over rabies concerns. While it’s unlikely many of us would blink, after all who wants to import potentially rabid dogs...? It triggered a thought I’ve spent additional time researching. Under what authority? And just how pervasive will the CDC’s use of executive authority become? Many have worried that the pandemic would create bodies of officials who are reluctant to give up the unprecedented executive authority they’ve exercised over our lives during the pandemic. While our attention has largely been focused on elected officials, could we see the biggest abuses with those who are unelected?
The CDC retains its authority to issue edicts from the Commerce Clause in the Constitution. Until Florida’s suit challenging the “no sail” order, the CDC hadn’t had its authority under it legally challenged. Under the Commerce Clause it states “Congress shall have the Power to regulate Commerce” (under which healthcare is explicitly stated). Beyond that it states, “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively, or the people”. Notably the CDC isn’t granted authority to do anything other than advise. It’s due to the US Constitution granting authority to the people, not unelected public officials. And clearly stating that those we elect are allowed authority to set policy on our behalf, not unelected scientists in Atlanta.
In fact, in 2014, a now eerie 2014 Time Magazine article, stated this during the concerns of Ebola becoming a pandemic: The CDC, as the U.S.’s primary agency for taking action to stop the spread of disease, has broad authority under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to restrict travel into the country and between states of an infected person or a person who has come in contact with an infected person, according to Laura Donohue, director of the Center on National Security and the Law at Georgetown Law School. Federal quarantine can be imposed, too, on federal property, like a military base or National Forest land. And as the preeminent employer of experts on public health crises, the CDC is always likely to get involved within any affected state in the event of a looming pandemic. But its power to act is extremely restricted. The agency traditionally acts in an advisory role and can only take control from local authorities under two circumstances: if local authorities invite them to do so or under the authority outlined in the Insurrection Act in the event of a total breakdown of law and order.
That was only seven years ago. The 10th Amendment hasn’t been amended since then. The CDC’s “no sail” order isn’t the only unconstitutional action being undertaken by the CDC. Every mandate they issue, right down to the rabid dogs, is unconstitutional. It’s critical the state of Florida its case against them for reasons far wider reaching than the cruise industry.