President Donald Trump’s decision Wednesday to cancel the signing of a bipartisan housing bill left Missouri lawmakers searching for a solution to one of the nation’s most pressing economic issues, the prohibitive cost of homeownership.
Trump is using the popular housing bill, aimed at increasing the affordability of homeownership for average Americans, as leverage to force the Senate to pass his SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and restricts mail-in voting. It has faced opposition on both sides of the political aisle.
After pushing the Senate to prioritize the SAVE America Act, Trump canceled the signing of the housing bill, known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. It would help first-time buyers purchase their first homes. According to a recent Harris poll, 4 in 10 Americans worry they may never be able to afford a home.
The president has been pushing legislation similar to the SAVE America Act for years as part of his claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud. He has offered no evidence to support that assertion, which has been thoroughly debunked.
The act has stalled due to a lack of support in the Senate.
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., who has worked on housing reform for decades and co-sponsored the housing bill, said he was disappointed by Trump’s last minute decision not to sign the housing bill.
“You cannot find a major housing advocacy group that’s not behind this,” Cleaver said, “but I think the president has politicized what we had worked very, very strenuously to depoliticize.”
The top Democrat on the Housing subcommittee, Cleaver worked alongside U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., to create the bipartisan bill.
“I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but he is trying to erase any of the togetherness between the parties that developed as a result of this piece of legislation. And it’s just — it is painful for some of us who have been in it all the way through,” Cleaver added.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he supports the housing bill but accepts Trump’s decision not to sign it.
“I defer to him on whether or not he wants to do a signing ceremony. I think he’s trying to light a fire under the Senate, and that’s probably a good thing. ... I think he’s trying to motivate the Senate a little bit and say, ‘this isn’t the time to take a victory lap,’” Hawley said.
Hawley also said he supports the SAVE act, and he would be surprised if the president vetoed the housing bill.
“Let’s just see what he does. If he has issues with the bill, I certainly would want to know what those are, but we can fix it,” Hawley said.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., has worked with the president on the SAVE act. In March, he proposed several amendments.
“I’ve been fully committed to passing the SAVE America Act,” Schmitt said on Wednesday. “I have the actual language the president supports.”
Schmitt also said he does not think the SAVE America Act and the housing bill were related.
“I think that just because a signing ceremony was postponed doesn’t mean that the bill’s not going to be signed into law,” Schmitt said.
Schmitt, along with 84 other senators, voted in favor of the housing bill when it came through the Senate. He said the bill contained important protections for Americans.
“Hedge funds have been buying up homes; that’s driven up the cost of homes for regular folks,” Schmitt said.
Brian Toohey, CEO for the Mid-Missouri Board of Realtors, said in a KOMU 8 article that Columbia has had a housing shortage for many years.
“We don’t have enough housing. We’ve had a housing shortage since 2017,” Toohey said.
The president has 10 days to either sign the housing bill into law or veto it.
