Donald Trump refuses to sign housing affordability bill passed by Congress and sent to the White House — here’s why | Today’s news
President Donald Trump said Friday he would delay signing a bipartisan housing measure after lawmakers refused to advance a separate voter ID bill he had been pushing.
The housing bill, known as the 21st Century Housing Pathway Act, has cleared both the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support and is scheduled to become law Saturday unless vetoed. But a White House official said on condition of anonymity that Trump would allow the measures to go into effect without signing them, according to Bloomberg.
“I will not sign the housing bill that has been fully passed by Congress and sent to the White House in PROTEST against the fact that the United States Senate is unable to pass the SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump said on social media.
Trump unexpectedly canceled a signing ceremony for the housing bill in June, reneging on his agreement to increase pressure on Senate Republicans to change their chamber’s rules and pass a separate voter ID measure.
Although Trump has not committed to signing the measure, House Republicans sent it to his desk on June 29, starting a 10-day countdown — excluding Sundays — to either sign or veto the legislation. If he did neither, it would become law on Saturday.
Scrapping the signature denied lawmakers in both parties and Trump himself a chance to highlight major legislation that seeks to address voters’ concerns about the cost of living. Those economic concerns are the dominant issue ahead of November’s midterm elections, in which Trump’s Republican Party faces an uphill battle to retain control of Congress.
Trump has sought to convince voters that his administration is addressing the high costs of housing, utilities, healthcare and food that are squeezing wallets. The Iran war exacerbated voters’ poor perception of the economy by sharply increasing oil and gas prices.
Trump said the housing bill was “fine,” but indicated he still considers the voter ID bill his real priority. Senate Republican leaders say they lack enough support to change the chamber’s rules or pass the bill.
The housing bill includes measures that would limit ownership of single-family homes by large institutional investors, ease rules on manufactured housing and encourage localities to remove barriers to construction in an effort to bring more supply to a troubled housing market.
Because housing supply takes time to expand, industry experts expect the legislation’s immediate impact to be muted. Housing costs have skyrocketed in the wake of the pandemic and have remained high even as mortgage rates have more than doubled in recent years.
One of the bill’s most persistent and controversial measures would prevent institutional investors with more than 350 homes from buying additional single-family properties. According to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, the inclusion of the measure was critical to securing White House support.
But House lawmakers successfully removed a controversial provision requiring large investors to sell homes built as rentals within seven years, after outrage from housing experts and advocates who said such a requirement would limit one of the few vectors of new supply and could block the construction of up to 100,000 new homes a year.
