Stanley Kurtz writes for National Review Online about the Biden administration’s unwillingness to share its plans for new federal housing regulations.
[T]he president’s rebooting of Obama’s controversial Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation is the unspoken key to Biden’s second-term housing plan. I added that Biden’s decision to wait until after his reelection to fully revive AFFH is politically motivated. AFFH inserts the feds into heretofore local decision-making on zoning, transportation, parks, school-district boundaries, and plenty more. This overweening bureaucratic regulation is going to stir up mighty resistance from Democrats and Republicans alike, especially in the suburbs. Biden is trying to disguise his plans so as not to alienate suburban voters.
Coincidentally or not, two days after my piece appeared, HuffPost effectively confirmed my point. In an article titled “White House Hesitates To Bring Back Fair Housing Rule,” Arthur Delaney consults several Democratic insiders on the status of AFFH. According to a “senior official,” the White House is “hesitating to finalize” AFFH “out of fear it would cause a conservative backlash.” A “senior HUD official with knowledge of the process” told HuffPost that AFFH hasn’t yet been finalized “because the White House is being ‘chickensh**’” (no expurgation in the original).
Despite an official White House spokesman’s denial that AFFH was being held up for political reasons, Sara Pratt, who worked on the original rule as Obama’s deputy assistant secretary for fair housing, doesn’t buy it. Although Pratt has no inside information, she told Delaney that she doesn’t think the rule needs further work. According to Pratt, “the amount of time that has passed that allows all the internal consideration, thoughtfulness about the comments and so forth, has happened undoubtedly, and the rule should be ready to publish.”
It’s been nearly four years since President Donald Trump revoked the original rule. It doesn’t take that long to restore a regulation, even with some tweaks. Clearly, AFFH is being held back for political reasons.
