It is crunch week for lawmakers on Capitol Hill working to pass bipartisan housing legislation, but there is much uncertainty given differences with the legislation in the House and the Senate.
Last week, the House released a revised version of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, housing legislation that already passed the Senate in an overwhelming vote, but that lawmakers in the House and several outside groups had major issues with.
HILL REPUBLICANS SEE URGENCY IN PASSING HOUSING BILL AHEAD OF MIDTERM ELECTIONS
Ahead of the revised legislation, the White House and President Donald Trump urged the House to pass the Senate version as is, but the House Financial Services Committee forged ahead and released a new version that is receiving pushback from the Senate.
The whole situation is further complicated by issues with math and timing. The House is set to leave after this week and not return until June, and is attempting to pass the bill under suspension, which requires a two-thirds majority vote and sidesteps certain procedural hurdles.
The plan is a Wednesday vote in the House, which would send it back to the Senate. And while the Senate and White House had wanted the House to vote on the Senate’s version of the bill, some in the lower chamber said that the bill wouldn’t have had the votes absent the changes.
“The Senate bill has a math problem in the House,” one senior House GOP aide told the Washington Examiner. “The House’s amendment reflects a good-faith effort to find consensus and move a bicameral bill to President Trump’s desk.”
But, on the other hand, a senior Senate GOP aide told the Washington Examiner that the House-side changes could threaten the legislation’s support in the upper chamber, which needs a 60-vote majority to pass.
“Any changes made by the House, which go directly against what President Trump himself has said he wants passed, would threaten to tear apart the bipartisan support in the Senate,” the aide warned. “It’s past time the House brings the Senate bill to the floor without changes.”
One key change in the House legislative update involves the ban on institutional investors purchasing single-family homes. Crucially, the ban would remain in place, but the new language narrows the definition of a single-family home and nixed a controversial provision on build-to-rent homes.
The Senate bill initially contained language that would require investors in build-to-rent homes to sell those houses within seven years. Housing experts argued it would decrease the housing stock, and industry groups have come out hard against the proposal.
The provision was heavily criticized by influential groups such as the National Association of Home Builders and the National Multifamily Housing Council.
The House’s revised bill strips that provision, which has drawn plaudits from groups such as the NAHB and the NMHC.
“I mean, obviously, we are pleased that the House understood better the BTR issue specifically,” Sharon Wilson Geno, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council, told the Washington Examiner.
But Republican and Democratic Senate aides are also pushing back on the language that narrows the definition of a single-family home, arguing that the combined changes would allow private equity firms to outcompete families in the market more than the Senate’s version.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) also appeared to take a jab at the House’s changes, specifically calling out Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), the ranking member of the financial services committee.
“Radical Dems like Maxine Waters & Al Sharpton, who are beholden to corporate landlords, & Trump hating RINOS are teaming up to kill the bipartisan housing bill,” Moreno said Monday on X.
While the changes to the institutional investor provisions received a lot of attention, there were other changes in the House version from the Senate version that House members saw as necessary.
The Main Street Caucus, chaired by Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE), released a statement last week noting the issues that House members in the caucus had with the Senate’s version of the legislation. Flood pointed out that the House’s original housing legislation passed in a 390-9 vote.
“Since then, the Senate made significant substantive changes to the bill that deviate from the House version that work against the stated goals of the bill and have drawn significant opposition from groups that previously supported the package,” the statement said.
There is also the Trump factor at play. It’s unclear how involved the White House will get in the dispute and in what comes next for the legislation, but a second senior GOP Senate aide didn’t mince words when asked about the House’s push to change the text.
“Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer, and French Hill are going against President Trump,” the aide said. “The White House, as well as the president, fully endorsed the Senate’s housing legislation. They are going against what President Trump wants — that is unacceptable.”
GOP FACES MOUNTING POLITICAL PRESSURE TO PASS BIPARTISAN HOUSING BILL
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday that he is in a wait-and-see mode on the housing legislation.
“Well, we’ll see what they do and what they may or may not add to it,” Thune said. “We’ll see, again what, how it comes back, if it comes back. Again, I wish they would just pick up the Senate bill.”