Cantwell Statement on Trump Holding Bipartisan Housing Bill Hostage Over His Plan to Disenfranchise Voters

Cantwell Statement on Trump Holding Bipartisan Housing Bill Hostage Over His Plan to Disenfranchise Voters

Today, President Trump refused to sign an overwhelmingly popular, bipartisan bill that would increase housing supply and drive down costs; Instead, Trump wants to pass the SAVE America Act - a bill that would result in mass disenfranchisement of American voters

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, President Donald Trump announced he would not sign the 21^st Century Road to Housing Act - an overwhelmingly popular, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate and would have increased housing supply and brought down housing costs - until Congress passed the SAVE America Act.

The SAVE America Act, as the President envisions it, would eliminate vote-by-mail and impose onerous new restrictions on voting and registering to vote. It would disenfranchise millions of Americans in the name of a voter fraud "crisis" that, even by the standards of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, straightforwardly does not exist.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, issued the following statement:

"Housing is a crisis in America and huge bipartisan majorities passed this bill on to the President's desk. He should now sign it or pledge not to veto it. Doing anything else is just sticking Americans with higher housing costs."

The 21^st Century ROAD to Housing Act is the result of longstanding, meticulous bipartisan negotiations and would establish a slate of policies aimed at driving down the cost of housing nationwide in the coming decades. The bill would place new limitations on large investors who scoop up single-family homes out from under everyday American families, as well as alter federal rules that currently make building new housing more expensive.

On Monday, Sen. Cantwell voted for the bill, which passed the Senate overwhelmingly, 85-5. Yesterday, the House passed the bill, 358-52. Then, this morning - with a stage literally set for President Trump to sign the bill - he instead backed out and made his new demand on social media that Congress pass the unrelated bill to disenfranchise voters.

A report The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes, released earlier this year by the National Low Income Coalition (NLICH), revealed that in the State of Washington a full-time worker must earn an hourly Housing Wage of $41.11 to afford the average Fair Market Rent (FMR) for a two-bedroom rental home in the state ($2,138). To afford this rent, plus utilities - without paying more than 30% of income on these expenses - a household must earn $85,501 annually. The Housing Wage assumes the individual works 40 hours per week for all 52 weeks of the year.

According to NLICH, developers and landlords in Washington state often cannot build or operate rental homes at prices affordable to these households because what they can afford to pay for rent is not enough to cover the costs to build and operate these properties.

Sen. Cantwell has long advocated for the need to increase the availability of affordable housing and is the leading advocate of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) in the Senate. In April 2025, she introduced the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, a bill to expand the LIHTC program and increase the number of affordable homes built in the United States. The bipartisan bill had 30 total original cosponsors, with an equal split of Democrats and Republicans, and elements of the legislation were included in the July 2025 reconciliation package.

Sen. Cantwell previously introduced the Affordable Housing Credit Act in 2021 and in 2023, along with Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA, 01), and led efforts to build a bipartisan, bicameral coalition in support of that legislation. Last Congress, Sen. Cantwell's legislation was joined by 308 Members - 58% of the entire Congress - including 170 Democrats and 139 Republicans.