Exclusive: Waters noncommittal on major Senate housing bill
Plus: Senate Dems face critical shutdown test vote and inside the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act oral argument.
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👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to Day 16 of the government shutdown. While a resolution still seems beyond arm’s reach, today will provide a signal into how entrenched Senate Democrats are in their opposition strategy. More on that below.
But let’s start with federal housing policy. The Senate scored a major win last week when it passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which included the ROAD to Housing Act, the first bipartisan comprehensive housing package advanced in the chamber in over a decade, among the typical defense policy measures.
The legislation, led by Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), features several housing and homelessness provisions (especially for veterans and service members) and adds housing authority tools, vouchers, tax credit flexibility and zoning incentives.
Rep. Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over federal housing policy, told me on Wednesday that she wasn’t fully ready to embrace the package yet.
“You know, that was passed very fast, without a hearing, and so the Republicans are very concerned about it,” Waters said. “Over on our side of the aisle, I think there may be some good things in there, but there’s a lot of studies and not really hard public policy in it.”
The bill passed 24-0 out of the Senate Banking Committee in late July. A spokesperson for Waters clarified that she meant no prior hearings were held to inform the bill before that late-summer markup. A Senate Banking spokesperson said the legislation was built on years of bipartisan committee work, stakeholder engagement and multiple hearings.
Waters also acknowledged the philosophical differences between House Republicans, whom she says believe the government spends too much money and should play a smaller role in the housing market.
“The housing needs in our country are great. We need more affordable housing,” Waters said. “We believe that the government has a role to play in assisting people with safe and secure housing and getting rid of discrimination and making sure that we have rental assistance and people are able to afford to purchase a home because that’s one aspect of the American dream to have home ownership.”
She added that she’s talking with House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) about his concerns regarding the ROAD to Housing bill.
“So let’s just see what happens in the next few weeks.”
Warren declined to comment on whether she has had any discussions with her House colleagues about the path forward. But she said that the bill received unanimous support in her committee because it includes various pieces that would work in different geographic areas. She added that the bill’s attachment to the must-pass NDAA increases the chances of final passage in the House since it won’t have to serve as its own legislative vehicle.
“There’s not a single senator or representative who doesn’t hear about the housing prices across America,” Warren told me. “If everyone votes the interests of their constituents, then it will sail right on through.”
“From protecting our military bases from Chinese influence, to securing America’s supply chains, to expanding access to housing, these provisions reflect the priorities of the American people: safety, security, and opportunity,” Scott said in a statement. “I’m proud we were able to deliver real results in this year’s NDAA that strengthen our national defense, protect our homeland, and improve the lives of families across the country.”
Scott did not respond to an inquiry on the appetite among House Republicans to take up the legislation. A spokesperson for Hill did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether President Trump wants the House to send him any or all of the bills included in the package. Additionally, it was unclear if his administration views housing affordability or supply as a legislative priority when the government reopens.
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Will Senate Dems play ball on the Pentagon spending bill?
The Senate will vote for the tenth time on the House-passed continuing resolution to reopen the government. But the vote that will occur after is the one worth watching.
It’s a procedural vote to advance a full-year spending bill to fund the Defense Department, which passed out of the Appropriations Committee with bipartisan support in late July.
This presents Democrats with a conundrum.
They can oppose the stand-alone measure and continue refusing to engage with Republican efforts to reopen the government until GOP leaders and the White House agree to Democratic demands on health care and impoundment. Or Democrats could see the Pentagon spending bill as an opportunity to make progress in areas of common ground, hoping that cooperation on regular appropriations bills could break the logjam over the current funding lapse.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters he could not determine how his members would vote on the bill because they had not been informed of what they would be voting on. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told me that he hadn’t spoken to Schumer about the approach Senate Democrats intended to take.
“But the clearest path forward is for Senate Republicans to realize that they need to sit down and have a bipartisan negotiation to reopen the government and enact a spending bill that addresses the needs of the American people while confronting the Republican healthcare crisis at the same time,” he said. “The reason why we’re in this situation is because House and Senate Republicans decided to take a my-way-or-the-highway, go-it-alone approach while demanding that Democrats capitulate. Democrats have not capitulated, and we will not.”
Thune described Democrats’ opposition as a “temper tantrum” that could end if five Democratic senators bucked their leadership and voted with Republicans on the House-passed bill.
“It’s not clear that Senate Republican leadership is ready for prime time at this moment,” Jeffries said. “What Senate Republicans have done is the classic definition of legislative insanity: They’ve brought a bill to the Senate floor now eight different times, and it continues to fail because Democrats have made clear we will not support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people.”
Thune said he would wait to see how this afternoon’s vote turned out before deciding whether to attach the bill to fund the Labor and Health and Human Services Departments to the Pentagon measure. He also told reporters that his shift in strategy wasn’t an endorsement of the government remaining shut down until all of the regular spending bills are passed.
“I don’t think that’s in anybody’s best interest,” he added. Shutdowns are not good for anybody, and the sooner we end it, the better.”
It’s unclear if Johnson will call the House back into session if Congress can pass regular appropriations bills during the shutdown. The House is on a 48-hour return notice.
“Leader Thune is trying to advance the defense approps bill today. We’ll see how that turns out. My suspicion is that democrats are going to play the same political games and stop that,” Johnson said. “I hope I’m surprised by that, but we’ll see. Dependent on action in the Senate, we can get all this moving again.”
Johnson is under fire after he sidestepped questions about Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who faces serious allegations
that he threatened to release sexually explicit photos and videos of a former partner and to harm any future romantic partners. A Florida judge issued a protective order barring Mills from contacting the accuser or coming within 500 feet of her home or workplace, citing credible evidence of emotional distress and risk of further violence. When pressed about the case, the speaker said he hadn’t looked into the details and dismissed the matter as not a priority—prompting immediate criticism that he is failing to hold his members accountable.
“The notion that House Republican leaders would dismiss the seriousness of what is clearly emerging as an untenable and frightening situation relative to Representative Mills is irresponsible,” Jeffries told me. “The Congress should be better than that level of dismissiveness that has been on display amongst my Republican colleagues.”
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said Johnson’s dismissal spoke volumes about how House Republicans value their constituents, especially women. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and several House Democratic women wore purple in observance.
“It is the same way he has approached this entire healthcare issue,” she told me. “And it is a crisis that will be felt by every single hard-working American in this country. But it is going to be felt first and hardest by women in this country.”
Meanwhile, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Office of Management and Budget to use existing Pentagon funds to pay active-duty and reserve military personnel during the ongoing government shutdown. The move fits a broader pattern in Trump’s presidency of expanding executive discretion over federal spending, but few Democrats see a political upside in squabbling over efforts to make sure the troops are paid.
Thune was asked if Trump needed to be more involved in negotiating an end to the shutdown.
“I mean, I think the White House is engaged. It’s not like he’s not,” Thune said. “But I think at this point the message is pretty straightforward: Just open up the government, and then we can talk.”
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Inside the SCOTUS oral argument on the Voting Rights Act
For Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.), the outcome of Louisiana v. Callais—a case concerning the state’s congressional redistricting and the role of race in drawing district lines—has personal ramifications.
He could either return to serving as the sole Democrat in Louisiana’s congressional delegation or continue partnering with Rep. Cleo Fields (D-La.), who returned to Capitol Hill in January after a 28-year absence thanks to a court order that gave the state a second Black-majority and Democratic-leaning seat.
I asked Carter, who represents New Orleans and was at the Supreme Court for the oral argument, to take Once Upon a Hill readers inside the courtroom.
“Listen, I thought Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, did a phenomenal job,” he told me. “She demonstrated passion and a complete command of the issues. I thought she did more than hold her own. She was phenomenal.”
Carter said he thought Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were the most combative.
“I thought Ketanji [Brown] Jackson, [Sonia] Sotomayor, the others, did a phenomenal job of supporting the position of the maintenance of the VRA,” he added. “And of course, I’m probably a little biased, but I don’t even think the justices that were usually predisposed to support Donald Trump had nothing to really stand on.”
The argument was tense and sharply divided at times, with the justices probing whether the Voting Rights Act’s race-conscious provisions still pass constitutional muster. On one side, the challengers framed Section 2 as an overreach that forces states to draw districts primarily on racial lines, arguing that Louisiana’s remedial map violates the Equal Protection Clause by giving undue weight to race.
Conservative justices—particularly Thomas, Alito and Neil Gorsuch—pressed that logic, voicing skepticism about long-standing precedents that permit majority-minority districts and asking whether those doctrines should be overruled. Meanwhile, the defenders warned that invalidating Section 2 or the remedial principle would gut one of the few legal tools left to combat vote dilution for communities of color.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked pointed questions about temporal limits on race-based relief and whether such interventions must expire after a generation. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett were more restrained in their questioning, leaving observers unsure how they’ll come down. (A Democratic aide predicted Kavanaugh would be the case’s swing vote.) The arguments made clear that the Court is seriously considering rolling back the framework that has governed redistricting for decades.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) told me he was concerned about the prospect of Section 2 being struck down.
“Anybody who loves democracy and believes that voting rights are a preservative of all other rights ought to be deeply concerned,” he told me. “We have seen an all-out assault on voting rights. And a watershed moment was Shelby v. Holder, where they hobbled the Voting Rights [Act], and we’re seeing the impact of that right now.”
Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) warned that Republicans could secure an additional 27 safe red House seats if the Supreme Court guts Section 2, with at least 19 directly tied to the loss of the key provision.
“Let me be clear: This case threatens to dismantle one of the last remaining safeguards against racial discrimination in our electoral system. And the stakes could not be higher,” Clarke said. “We are standing on the precipice of what could be a substantial blow to one of the most important civil rights laws in our nation’s history.”
A decision is expected next summer.