Pressing Issues Push Housing Bill Back
April 21, 2026
Several must-pass priorities are stacking up as the House and Senate look to negotiate changes to the housing bill, H.R. 6644.
Why it matters: House and Senate committee leaders have been negotiating changes to the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, including revising the language banning large institutional investors from purchasing single family homes.
However, there have been few public signs of progress on the housing bill, and other priorities, described below, may delay floor consideration:
- Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA): Last week, the House and Senate passed a 10-day extension to avert a lapse in the program, which authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign nationals abroad. Critics on the left and right have pushed for additional procedural protections for U.S. nationals while the White House is asking for a clean 18-month extension.
- Homeland Security Shutdown: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) still lacks funding as it enters day 67 of the shutdown.
- While the administration has made efforts to pay TSA agents, Democrats and Republicans refuse to budge from the core issues surrounding ICE and customs and border patrol (CBP).
- The Senate GOP will attempt to use reconciliation to fund ICE and CBP (see below), but lawmakers will still need to fund the rest of DHS
- Reconciliation Part 2 and Beyond: Senate Republicans will start the reconciliation process, with a key aim of funding ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. The process allows tax and spending bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority.
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune wants to keep this bill “skinny” and focused on ICE/CBP funding. Other priorities, including an Iran defense supplemental could be in a subsequent reconciliation bill.
- Other GOP lawmakers want to add more items to this bill, including defense and affordability-focused items.
- On the money-raising front, the GOP may look to recoup federal funds by cracking down on fraud in federal spending.
What’s next: The House will work on FISA this week as the Senate kicks of reconciliation, but the unresolved intra-party disagreements coupled with narrow margins make the process less predictable.