Housing Should Not Be Held Hostage to Voter Suppression

By Michelle Moore and Karen Kinard – Bridge2Blue

In a rare move, Congress passed a major bipartisan housing bill aimed at increasing housing supply, lowering costs for renters and homebuyers, and limiting corporate investors’ ability to purchase single-family homes. The House and the Senate both approved the 21st Century Road to Housing Act with overwhelming bipartisan support — the biggest housing bill approved by Congress in decades.

Then President Trump refused to sign the bill and canceled the signing ceremony unless Congress also passed the SAVE Act. If Congress keeps up daily pro forma sessions during the upcoming recess, the bill will become law after 10 days (excluding Sundays), unless vetoed by the President — and Congress has insufficient support to override a veto.

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) highlighted the bill’s potential to help address the rising cost of living. It contains more than 40 provisions, several of which he authored. Warner criticized the president’s attempt to hold the housing bill hostage in order to force passage of the SAVE Act, calling it the largest voter-disenfranchisement effort in modern history.

Rep. James Walkinshaw (VA-11) summed up the situation: “Democrats stand with the American people. We can have both, right? We can make housing more affordable through our bipartisan legislation and we can continue to support free and fair access to the ballot box for every single American.” He also emphasized that the “SAVE Act is not about voter ID laws. The SAVE Act would make it all but impossible for many Americans, including a lot of women, to register to vote.”

Rep. Jennifer McClellan (VA-4) was even more direct: “Today, the President canceled the bill signing ceremony until Congress passes his modern-day poll tax and the largest voter suppression bill since the days of Jim Crow.”

On June 24, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (VA-10) sat in rows of empty seats after President Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the housing bill.

Trump’s insistence that he would only sign the housing bill if Congress passed the SAVE Act would make it much harder — and in some cases impossible — for millions of eligible Americans to register and vote. The law would require documentary proof of citizenship to register or vote , such as a birth certificate (where many names on IDs conflict with those on birth records, especially for married women), passports, which are costly and not held by many Americans, certificates of naturalization or citizenship, or a Consular Report of Birth Abroad for citizen parents.

Trump is pushing for an even more extreme version, adding limits on voting by mail, requiring some voters to re-register in person, and expanding federal authority to inspect voter rolls and collect personal data. Election officials warn that layering new federal mandates onto state election systems would create confusion, conflicting deadlines, and administrative chaos for the people who run elections.

The cost and bureaucracy of the House’s SAVE America bill are bad enough. Many longtime voters may not realize until they try to register or vote that a REAL ID alone — or a military, student, government employee, or tribal ID — would no longer be accepted.

And all of this is being pushed despite the lack of evidence that voter fraud or noncitizen voting exists beyond a tiny fraction of cases and despite several lawsuits stopping federal efforts to force states to turn over voting records. Certainly, these measures are not warranted.

The SAVE America Act passed the House in February 2026, and every one of Virginia’s Republican Representatives voted for it: Jennifer Kiggans (VA02), Rob Wittman (VA01), John McGuire (VA05), Ben Cline (VA06), and Morgan Griffith (VA09).

The SAVE Act died in the Senate in early June. It needs to stay dead.