Richard Shelby named a model of courage in the Senate on AFFH defund

5
30
Affordable fair housing

Alabama Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby received high praise Thursday by the Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning after Shelby, along with Utah Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, worked diligently to pass an amendment proposed to the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) appropriations bill.

Introduced by Sen. Lee, the amendment would prohibit implementation of the HUD regulation “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH) that conditions $3 billion of yearly community development block grants on 1,200 recipient cities and counties rezoning neighborhoods along income and racial guidelines. Despite their best efforts, the amendment was tabled by a vote of 60 to 37.

“Americans wonder what is going wrong with the system in Washington, D.C., where senators seem more interested in playing paddy cake with President Obama and his radical agenda rather than standing up and fighting it,” said Manning. “Unfortunately, too many of [their] Republican colleagues were more afraid of the race hustlers who seek to put low-income high-rise apartments into middle-class neighborhoods, and the Lee amendment failed.”

Manning continued, “Here is the truth. Local zoning only determines what can be built where, not who can live there. Senator Lee and Senator Shelby’s willingness to stand up for local control over our nation’s zoning laws demonstrates once again that they are some of the few who match what they say back home with what they do in Washington, D.C.”

All hope is not lost for proponents of the Lee amendment. Companion language has been once again introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by. U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar from Arizona.

“The good news is that the House has passed the exact same language as offered by Lee the past two years with support ranging across the conference’s ideological divide, so there is still a chance for stopping Obama’s HUD madness,” Manning explained. “In the meantime, every citizen should find out if their city or county are one of the 1,200 local governments which take community development block grants.”

5 COMMENTS

Comments are closed.