The House Republican who spearheaded legislation aimed at building more homes in America received an influx of donations from a major industry group after the Senate passed a competing version of the bill that the trade association opposes.

Rep. French Hill of Arkansas received a combined $54,250 in donations from the Mortgage Bankers Association PAC to his campaign and leadership PAC in the last two and a half weeks of March, according to the latest Federal Election Commission disclosures. That’s an increase from its past pattern of donations. Like the trade association, the lawmaker opposes a provision in the Senate bill, passed March 12, barring institutional investors from buying up single-family homes.

The provision has a difficult path forward. While President Donald Trump previously endorsed it, Politico reported on Monday that he has privately taken issue with the language of the Senate’s ban. In the House, a range of representatives from both parties, including Hill and Democratic Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Sam Liccardo, who serve on the Financial Services Committee, also oppose it.

And off the Hill, industry players have also lined up against it. The donations illustrate how eager industry groups like the Mortgage Bankers Association are to see the legislation killed.

“This is how the system works, and this is how industries try to wield their influence,” said Brendan Glavin, director of insights at the nonpartisan nonprofit OpenSecrets, which tracks the flow of money in U.S. politics. “It’s about letting people know that they appreciate your support, and that there are people out there who, you know, are behind your position and that they are there to support them.”

Asked about the increase in donations, Adam DeSanctis, a Mortgage Bankers Association spokesperson, said in a statement to NOTUS that the trade association and its PAC’s “political engagement is bipartisan and focused on supporting policymakers who demonstrate leadership on housing finance and real estate issues.”

“Our PAC contributions reflect ongoing engagement with members of Congress who are actively involved in these matters, regardless of party, and are not tied to any single legislative provision or vote,” DeSanctis said.

It’s a modest amount in the broader scheme of campaign finance, but it’s a clear departure from the group’s donation history. The Mortgage Bankers Association PAC has never given as much to Hill’s campaign and leadership PAC in such a short period of time.

By comparison, Mortgage Bankers Association PAC donated a total of $5,000 to Hill’s campaign in 2025, $6,500 in 2024, and $3,500 in 2023. The Mortgage Bankers Association PAC has donated $5,000 to his leadership PAC every year since 2018, according to FEC data.

For the first time, the Mortgage Bankers Association PAC also earmarked individual contributions for Hill’s campaign and leadership PAC during the first quarter of 2026, as both chambers of Congress negotiated their housing packages.

More than $44,000 of the donations in those last two and a half weeks of March came from earmarked donations, according to a NOTUS analysis of Hill’s campaign and leadership PAC’s most recent disclosures.

Glavin said he believes the sudden appearance of earmarked contributions is a sign of the group making a decision to “circle on the wagons and saying, OK, we need to focus on this.”

Groups like the Mortgage Bankers Association oppose a specific section of the ban which would require large investors to sell build-to-rent properties seven years after construction.

More than a dozen industry groups, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, signed onto a letter to House leadership, Hill and Rep. Maxine Waters, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, after the Senate passed its version of the legislation on March 13 to express their concern that the provision “would effectively eliminate the production of Build-to-Rent (BTR) housing.”

“Put simply, this provision inexplicably takes new housing units off the table and would exacerbate our housing crisis. We urge you to take action to amend this bill and preserve the production of BTR housing nationwide,” the letter said.

Both chambers’ housing bills are currently stalled. But since the Senate passed a housing package that includes the provision, Hill and Waters have reportedly discussed changes to the investor ban and plan on sending an amended version back to the Senate, according to Punchbowl News.

Dan Schneider, a spokesperson for Hill, pointed NOTUS to Hill’s comments on Squawk Box on March 18, in which he said “we’d like to see that language corrected” and that the House and Senate “working together to find a better bill benefits President Trump.”

“I’m sure he wants his key provision that he’s talked about in the State of the Union banning institutional ownership from too many single-family homes to work and not create a supply problem, but actually be a positive contributor to both building home supply [and] making sure individual families have a chance to buy a house,” Hill said.

But even during the Squawk Box interview, Hill made a point of mentioning that “the Mortgage Bankers and the Home Builders are opposed to the Senate bill.” Schneider declined to comment on the record when asked about Hill citing these groups’ opposition as a reason for changing the language.

Speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association National Advocacy Conference on April 14, Hill said he wanted the bill “to be an overwhelming success that adds to the housing supply.”

Hill’s leadership PAC, In the Arena PAC, also received $10,000 from the National Association of Home Builders PAC, BUILDPAC, in 2026 — twice as much as the $5,000 the committee has contributed to the PAC in recent years. Of that total, BUILDPAC contributed $5,000 after the Senate passed its housing bill. BUILDPAC declined to comment.

Hill’s campaign also received $5,000 from the National Association of Residential Property Managers, another critic of the Senate provision, at the end of March — the first time the group’s PAC has contributed to Hill’s campaign, according to FEC records.

The National Association of Residential Property Managers did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.

Waters’ campaign also saw an uptick in donations from opponents to the provision after the Senate version of the legislation passed, though it’s far less than the amounts given to Hill.

Waters has not publicly opposed the provision and has instead called for a conference to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the housing package.

A spokesperson for Waters did not respond to requests for comment from NOTUS.