Feb. 11, 2016, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Republican senators to join presidential contenders Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in supporting S. 1909, the “Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2015,” legislation by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) that prohibits the use of federal funds to implement the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulation, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH):
“Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz agree that President Obama’s political bureaucrats at the Department of Housing and Urban Development have no business overriding local zoning authority to impose their radical vision on America.
“Under HUD’s AFFH regulation, the federal government is imposing its will by conditioning the acceptance of $3.3 billion of annual community development block grants on 1,200 local governments being forced to acquiesce to rezone cities and counties along racial and income fairness guidelines. Local zoning only determines what can be built where, not who can live there, which is subject to market conditions including demand, location and availability. This has nothing to do with real housing discrimination, which has been illegal for almost 50 years, it is about nationalizing neighborhoods, giving the federal government the power to determine where people live and what will be built where. This may be Obama’s most far-reaching regulation yet, and that is why the Senate must stop it.
“There should not be a single Republican in the Senate opposed to the Lee, Rubio, Cruz bill that stops implementation of this radical rulemaking. HUD overreach is already impacting Dubuque, Iowa and Westchester County, N.Y. and this is only the beginning. The Senate needs to hold hearings, and join the House in passing an appropriations rider that stops Obama in the short-term. Additionally, the Lee, Rubio, Cruz legislation should be brought up for a vote and passed. Every Republican Senator still running for president agrees with Mike Lee on this issue, making this a national issue worthy of every senator’s immediate attention.
“This is not a joke, it affects property owners in every senator’s respective states. Now is the time to take a stand, before the HUD racial and income rezoning regulation becomes a permanent weapon of mass destruction in the federal government’s arsenal against cities and counties.
“The House of Representatives, led by Representative Paul Gosar has passed defunding amendments of the Obamazone regulation in the HUD appropriations bill each of the past two years, and now it is time for the Senate to get on board and force an end to this noxious federal government overreach at once.”
Attachments:
Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2015 cosponsors at https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1909/cosponsors :
Sen. Vitter, David [R-LA]
Sen. Cotton, Tom [R-AR]
Sen. Enzi, Michael B. [R-WY]
Sen. Sessions, Jeff [R-AL]
Sen. Rubio, Marco [R-FL]
Sen. Daines, Steve [R-MT]
Sen. Cruz, Ted [R-TX]
Time for Congress to defund Obama’s racial zoning quotas, By Robert Romano, Dec. 3, 2015 at http://netrightdaily.com/2015/12/time-for-congress-to-defund-obamas-racial-zoning-quotas/
Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.
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