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Elizabeth Warren's Amazingly Progressive Housing Bill - Robert Kuttner
Yesterday on Capitol Hill, as Democrats and Republicans continued bitterly wrangling over the terms for funding the Department of Homeland Security, and the parties divided over Trump’s catastrophic miscalculation on the Iran war, the Senate harmoniously passed the most expansive housing bill in 36 years. The bipartisan vote was 89-to-10.
The 303-page legislation creates new programs and federal money for housing construction, promotes manufactured housing, while streamlining zoning and permitting obstacles and improving access to mortgages. A key measure aimed at private equity prevents Wall Street from buying large numbers of single-family homes. The bill would allow construction of single-family homes as rentals, but companies with more than 350 units would have to sell them within seven years.
Even more improbably for casual observers, the bill reflected the legislative and political genius of one of the Senate’s most progressive members, Elizabeth Warren. How does the senator do it? Two ways.
First, think of a Venn diagram. For the most part, Republican and Democratic principles and politics on how to contain and complement rapacious capitalism diverge. But there are some areas of potential overlap where Republicans find it expedient to embrace a bit of economic populism. The massive public outcry on behalf of affordable housing is one. And while Republicans push tax cuts and lifting regulatory restraints to help oligarchs, a symbolic kick now and then is good cover.
Warren’s genius is to identify those areas and pursue legislative opportunities—this is part two of her strategy—to find a Republican partner. In this case, her lead co-sponsor was Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee on which Warren serves as ranking Democrat, and the Senate’s only Black Republican.
The 303-page legislation creates new programs and federal money for housing construction, promotes manufactured housing, while streamlining zoning and permitting obstacles and improving access to mortgages. A key measure aimed at private equity prevents Wall Street from buying large numbers of single-family homes. The bill would allow construction of single-family homes as rentals, but companies with more than 350 units would have to sell them within seven years.
Even more improbably for casual observers, the bill reflected the legislative and political genius of one of the Senate’s most progressive members, Elizabeth Warren. How does the senator do it? Two ways.
First, think of a Venn diagram. For the most part, Republican and Democratic principles and politics on how to contain and complement rapacious capitalism diverge. But there are some areas of potential overlap where Republicans find it expedient to embrace a bit of economic populism. The massive public outcry on behalf of affordable housing is one. And while Republicans push tax cuts and lifting regulatory restraints to help oligarchs, a symbolic kick now and then is good cover.
Warren’s genius is to identify those areas and pursue legislative opportunities—this is part two of her strategy—to find a Republican partner. In this case, her lead co-sponsor was Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee on which Warren serves as ranking Democrat, and the Senate’s only Black Republican.
https://prospect.org/2026/03/13/elizabeth-warrens-amazingly-progressive-housing-bill/]