The Senate delivered a resounding 85-5 vote Monday for sweeping housing legislation that aims to crack down on Wall Street investor buying while clearing regulatory hurdles for new construction. The move marks a rare show of unity on Capitol Hill as the bill heads to the House for a vote within days, then to President Trump's desk for signature.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act emerged from a months-long deadlock after the Senate and House had each passed competing versions. Negotiators from both parties, led by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, finally bridged their differences last week by crafting a compromise that added key House provisions and stripped away a more aggressive investor cap that Democrats had initially resisted.
The legislation creates new funding and grant programs to spur housing construction while streamlining the approval process through local governments. Its centerpiece, a section titled "Homes Are For People, Not Corporations," restricts large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes, a provision Trump touted during his State of the Union address as a way to stop "large Wall Street investment firms" from "buying up in the thousands single-family homes."
Republicans view the deregulation components as a win, with Representative French Hill of Arkansas calling it "a meaningful step toward increasing housing supply, improving affordability, and helping more Americans achieve homeownership." Warren and fellow Democrats celebrate the investor restrictions as a direct blow to private equity's foothold in the residential market.
The bill's passage comes as Trump faces mounting political pressure on economic matters. A mid-June Associated Press poll showed his overall approval rating at 37 percent, with just 33 percent approving of his handling of the economy. Nearly 80 percent of Americans believe the American Dream is harder to achieve than a generation ago, according to NBC News polling from June. Republicans are bracing for challenging 2026 midterm prospects as voters increasingly feel the administration and Congress have done little to address the cost of living, a central issue that secured Trump's 2024 victory.
The White House called the bill a reflection of "the President's housing affordability agenda," though Republican lawmakers acknowledged Trump remained largely uninvolved in the negotiations. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana noted that despite a couple of meetings weeks prior, the president never got on the phone to push the deal forward. "You'll never get a bill that everybody loves," Kennedy said. "You just gotta do the best you can."
The achievement faced headwinds from competing news cycles. Trump's shifting stance on an Iran deal, decisions surrounding the expired FISA Section 702 surveillance program, and his controversial plan to turn the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue dominated headlines this week, drawing attention away from the housing win and sparking rare backlash from within Republican ranks.
Several senators missed Monday's vote due to severe thunderstorms that forced a ground stop at Ronald Reagan National Airport, but the overwhelming margin suggests the bill will sail through the House and reach Trump's signature stage with comfortable support across both parties.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "A genuine legislative achievement on affordability, even if Congress had to strip down its ambitions to get it done, is still worth celebrating in an era of total gridlock."
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