A landmark US housing bill automatically became law at midnight on Saturday after President Donald Trump declined to sign the legislation, staging a protest against the Senate’s failure to pass an election security measure known as the SAVE America Act.
The bipartisan legislation, titled the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, represents the most comprehensive reform to US housing policy in decades. The measure is designed to boost housing supply and lower consumer costs, notably by blocking institutional investors from buying up existing single-family homes to reduce competition for everyday homebuyers.
Under the US Constitution, any bill approved by both houses of Congress automatically becomes law if the president fails to sign or veto it within 10 days, excluding Sundays. House Speaker Mike Johnson started the 10-day countdown when he formally transmitted the legislation to the White House on 29 June.
The legislation had secured wide bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Senate, and Trump was originally scheduled to sign it at a Capitol Hill ceremony last month. However, the president abruptly cancelled the event hours before it was due to begin, threatening to withhold his signature until Congress approved the SAVE America Act, which introduces strict new voting and voter registration rules.
Trump reaffirmed his refusal to sign the housing bill on Friday morning via social media. Writing on Truth Social, the president stated he was withholding his signature in protest because the US Senate was unable to pass the election bill. He claimed the SAVE America Act had 97% support within the Republican Party and polled highly among non-politician Democrats, whilst dismissing the housing bill as unimportant in comparison.
The political standoff placed Trump’s Republican allies in Congress in a difficult position, preventing them from campaigning on their efforts to lower the cost of living ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Despite direct pressure from the president, Senate Republican leaders have repeatedly acknowledged that the election bill lacks the necessary votes to pass the chamber.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, the primary architect of the housing bill in the Senate, strongly criticised the president’s tactics. In a public statement, Warren noted that the bipartisan bill to lower housing costs had become law at the stroke of midnight without the president’s signature. She suggested Trump had ignored the landmark bill for more than two weeks because it offered him no personal financial benefit, adding that he was simply uninterested in lowering costs for American families.
The new law introduces more than 45 distinct provisions focused on accelerating the development of affordable housing. Key elements include the removal of regulatory barriers, the streamlining of environmental reviews, and the creation of an innovation fund for local communities that successfully expand their housing supply.
Additionally, the law establishes a pilot scheme to help local governments convert empty commercial properties into residential units, increases federal funding for factory-built housing, and removes rules requiring homes to be constructed on transportable steel chassis. By restricting institutional investors to new construction rather than existing single-family homes, the law aims to protect homebuyers whilst maintaining incentives for firms to build new stock.
Prior to the bill passing into law, Speaker Johnson sought to downplay the rift, telling reporters that the president had a lot on his plate and had likely not read every line of the extensive text. Johnson explained that Trump was merely emphasising that nothing was as important as ensuring election integrity, rather than suggesting that cost-of-living concerns were trivial.
The House Speaker confirmed he had previously urged Trump to sign the document with the thickest black marker available, reassuring him that the legislation would deliver highly positive outcomes for the American public. Johnson concluded by stating that even if the president chose not to sign it to effectively make a political point, the bill would still become law and be celebrated by Congress.
Information taken from CBS