APARTMENT ADVOCATE
NATIONAL APARTMENT ASSOCIATION /
NATIONAL MULTIFAMILY HOUSING COUNCIL
What Does This Mean: Looking Ahead to the
116th Congress
A
t long last, the 2018 midterm
elections have come and
gone….well, almost.
Several races in the House
and Senate are still too close to call as
this special edition of the Advocate went
to press. Those outstanding races will
not, however, change the big picture
takeaway from yesterday’s voting – the
Democrats retake control of the House
of Representatives and the Republicans
maintain and, indeed, expand their
majority in the Senate. The exact number
of seats in those respective majorities is
still to be determined, but the die is cast
as to who controls the chambers when the
116th Congress is gaveled in next year.
We will leave the "why" of the election
results to the pundit class and instead
focus on what it means for the apartment
industry and our priorities next year.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Elections have consequences.
While our legislative and regulatory
priorities are driven by the concerns of our
members and not who controls Congress,
the messaging, strategy and tactics of
our advocacy adjusts to the new political
reality. In this case, we now incorporate
the element of a Democratic majority in
the House of Representatives.
That means that our key committees
(and their subcommittees) in the House
will be led by new chairs with their
own legislative priorities. Some of these
priorities will dovetail well with ours and
some will not. And, as is always the case,
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some of our priorities will resonate more
and some less with these new leaders versus
their Republican predecessors.
Ultimately, the apartment industry is a
bipartisan community. Our greatest successes
are through the combined efforts of members
of Congress from both sides of the aisle who
share our vision - ensuring apartment owners
and operators can build and maintain quality
housing that is affordable to those across the
economic spectrum.
Beyond overall control of the House
and leadership of committees, our advocacy
will be impacted by changes to the
membership of the committees themselves.
For example, eleven members of the House
Financial Services Committee were already
leaving because of retirement, running for
other political office or due to defeat in
their primary election. There are several
other members of this Committee who
lost their reelection campaigns yesterday
and will not return for the 116th Congress.
This is the case across every Committee in
the House and so the apartment industry
will be spending a great deal of time
educating the new Members of Congress
and these committees about our business
and our policy priorities.
(R-UT) is retiring this year as chair of
the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
The option to lead this committee first
goes to Chuck Grassley (R-IA) who
currently leads the Senate Judiciary
Committee. If he decides to stay with the
Judiciary Committee then Mike Crapo
(R-ID), current chairman of the Senate
Banking Committee, could become
chairman of Finance. That could then
open the chairman’s seat for Banking
to Pat Toomey (R-PA). You can see
how every change in leadership of one
committee has spillover effects to others.
And, as with the House Committees,
each chair has their own policy priorities
which advocates everywhere will have
to navigate.
One must acknowledge that a
divided Congress will make the path
of policymaking difficult over the
next two years. The influence of the
imminent Presidential campaign will
also complicate the political process.
Regardless, the apartment industry will
press our case, execute our advocacy plan
on our top policy priorities and take our
victories where we can get them.
SENATE PRIORITIES FOR THE 116TH
CONGRESS
Though control of the Senate did
not change, there will be changes in key
committees of interest to the apartment
industry. Nothing is certain yet, however
there are some plausible scenarios.
For example, Senator Orrin Hatch Apartment owners and operators
know how many different issues impact
the apartment industry, but some always
rise to the top. The top priorities for
the 116th Congress (2019-2020) reflect
unfinished legislative business and local
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