‘A First Step’: Senate Passes Major Bipartisan Housing Bill

The Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation aimed at boosting housing supply across the country on a 89-10 vote on Thursday, the first major housing legislation to pass through the chamber in more than a decade.

It still has a long path to becoming law. The Senate’s vote tees up a fight with the House, which passed its own version of the housing bill in February that includes several provisions omitted by the Senate. Republican members of the House insisted in the lead-up to the Senate’s vote that the Senate needed to make dramatic changes to the legislation — which it did not — or agree to a conference to proceed.

“We’re in the middle of a housing crisis, and finally, Congress is going to do something about it. We’re actually going to increase housing supply and beat back private equity,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who spearheaded the bill alongside Sen. Tim Scott, told NOTUS minutes before its final passage.

“We just need the House to pass it. The president has already put out a strong statement of support,” Warren, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, added.

The Senate’s package, known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, would ban institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes, remove regulatory requirements to speed up housing development and overhaul federal housing programs to better support the construction of new homes. It’s aimed at making housing more affordable, part of Republicans’ broader efforts to focus on affordability — President Donald Trump backed the Senate’s version of the bill.

“If the White House wants the House to pick up the bill and pass it, they’ll probably have to make that argument to the House leadership,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Capitol Hill before the final vote.

Asked about a possible conference, Thune said, “That’s always a possibility.”

Senators are pleased about the bill’s trajectory in the Senate chamber, even as opposition in the House remains.

“I think this is a long time in coming, and I think it’s a good first step in helping people that otherwise couldn’t get a house, get a house,” Sen. Mike Rounds, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, told NOTUS ahead of the bill’s passage. “I think it fits right into what the president wanted us to do.”

The Senate bill included 20 out of 25 provisions from the House-passed package. It moved through the upper chamber with broad bipartisan support, gathering enough leadership support and broader momentum to clear procedural votes with ease.

But House Republicans are angry about the legislation’s omission of provisions that would deregulate community banks and include a permanent ban on central bank digital currency.

Senators don’t see the package as the end-all solution to the housing crisis, but they are optimistic that it bodes well for future legislation on this issue.

“I’m happy that even in this sharply partisan and often bitter environment, we were able to get this done. But to be really clear, I view this as a first step, not as a final step,” Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is also a member of the Senate Banking Committee, told NOTUS.