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Today, U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after formally requesting, along with 17 other members of Congress, that the House Judiciary Committee hold a hearing on the Congressman’s sponsored legislation, H.R. 1995, the Local Zoning and Property Rights Protection Act:
“The Obama Administration continues to unleash a flurry of new regulations that seek to circumvent Congress and impose his ideological agenda by any and all means necessary. The president’s ‘assault on the suburbs’ may be his biggest overreach yet and this new mandate is not grounded in law or reality. The House of Representatives has already voted twice to defund the president’s latest attempt to control where people can live but more must still be done to prevent this dangerous new regulation.
“American citizens should be free to choose where they would like to live and not be subject to neighborhood engineering and gerrymandering at the behest of an overreaching federal government. Congress must remain vigilant in opposing this new edict and I am pleased to be joined by so many colleagues who recognize the perils associated with this looming threat that will negatively impact homeownership.”
In the formal hearing request, the requesting members of the House stated: “This new Washington mandate has nothing to do with race, as housing discrimination has been illegal for more than 40 years. This overreaching new regulation is an attempt to extort communities into giving up control of local zoning decisions and reengineer the makeup of our neighborhoods.”
Background:
The formal hearing request to Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Subcommittee Chairman Trent Franks can be found HERE.
On July 8, 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a new regulation known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). The AFFH rule seeks to use the disparate impact legal theory to justify social engineering of local neighborhoods. It would do so by withholding Community Development Block Grant funds from towns and cities unless they meet utopian standards of integration based on sex, income, religion, race and other federally protected demographics. HUD is essentially creating a set of rules and regulations by which communities must conform or face losing out on tens of millions of dollars in grant money annually. Further, this new mandate will result in increased local taxes, depress property values and cause further harm to impoverished communities that urgently need these funds.
Congressman Gosar’s bill, the Local Zoning and Property Rights Protection Act, rejects this overreach and prohibits HUD from implementing this new regulation and the accompanying assessment tool. The full text of the Local Zoning and Property Rights Protection Act can be found HERE. Furthermore, the bill includes an important federalism provision that requires HUD to consult with local governments and local communities for the purposes of furthering the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by means other than top-down federal regulations. More information about H.R. 1995 can be found HERE.
Congressman Gosar wrote and op-ed for Investor’s Business Daily titled Latest Federal Mandate On 'Fair Housing' Is Anything But, which can be read HERE.
The House of Representatives has already voted twice to defund the AFFH rule during consideration of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development funding bills for fiscal years 2015 and 2016 (Roll Call Vote no. 285 from the 113th Congress and Roll Call Vote no. 311 from the 114th Congress). More information on those votes can be found HERE and HERE.
Signers of the formal hearing request include: Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert, Marsha Blackburn, John Duncan, Glenn Grothman, Steve Chabot, David Joyce, Cynthia Lummis, Trent Franks, Lynn Westmoreland, Brian Babin, Jim Bridenstine, Scott DesJarlais, Doug LaMalfa, Thomas Massie, Tom McClintock, Pete Sessions and Randy Weber.
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