[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 89 (Tuesday, May 12, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2374-S2375]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            VOTE EXPLANATION

  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I wish to state for the record that, 
though the difficulties of traveling across the country in the midst of 
the current coronavirus pandemic made it impossible for me to present 
in the Capitol to vote on the nomination Brian D. Montgomery, of Texas, 
to be Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, I would have 
voted `nay' had I been present.
  Few things create a stronger foundation for a thriving, successful 
families than affordable housing. Study after study has shown that 
children who grow up in a stable home do better in school and are more 
successful over the course of their lives. Stable affordable housing 
builds strong neighborhoods and communities because the members of that 
community are invested in its success. For generations of Americans, 
homeownership has been a driving force behind the building of a strong 
middle class, helping families build wealth through the equity 
generated through homeownership.
  As the son of a union mechanic, I experienced this throughout my own 
life. My father's wages were enough to afford a modest ranch home in a 
blue collar Oregon community. And because of that house and that 
community, I was given all kinds of opportunities. I was allowed to 
explore my interests, whether it was taking machines apart and putting 
them back together again in my dad's garage or exploring the great 
outdoors as a Boy Scout. I was able to receive a good public education 
and go on to be the first in my family to graduate from college.
  But far too many Americans don't have those same opportunities today. 
That is because the goal of affordable housing, whether buying a house 
or renting a decent apartment, is out of reach for too many working and 
middle-class families and falling further

[[Page S2375]]

out of reach with every day that passes. Prior to this pandemic, we saw 
rents and home prices rising twice as fast as worker's incomes. Today, 
the cost of a typical single-family home is four times greater than the 
median household income.
  We need a Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who will 
make it a priority to reverse the trajectory that we have been on and 
to actually make housing more affordable in America. This position is 
responsible for management of all day-to-day operations within HUD, 
including roughly 7,700 employees. They oversee a budget of 
approximately $50 billion that funds a number of programs meant to 
provide quality, affordable housing for lower income Americans, 
provides rental assistance for low-income families, and distributes 
grants to states and communities for various housing-related purposes 
and also enforces the Fair Housing Act.
  Brian Montgomery is not the person for the job.
  In his current role as the FHA Commissioner, Mr. Montgomery has 
supported policies from the Trump administration that would increase 
the cost of FHA loans and include risk-based pricing, continuing to 
make homeownership even less affordable for those who can least afford 
it. He was also part of the senior leadership team that published a 
rule that would help undermine enforcement of the Fair Housing Act 
through the Disparate Impact Study. The disparate impact standard is a 
longstanding tool used to root out policies and practices that may not 
be openly discriminatory on their face, but disproportionally harm a 
protected class under the Fair Housing Act. The proposed rule that Mr. 
Montgomery helped create--and which is vigorously opposed by a 
coalition of fair housing, civil rights, and consumer groups--rigs the 
system to make it nearly impossible for a victim of discrimination to 
win a disparate impact claim.
  A person who has used his current position to make it harder for low- 
and middle-income Americans to afford to buy a home should not serve in 
a top-tier position as the equivalent of the Department of Housing and 
Urban Development's chief financial officer. We need individuals in 
these positions fighting to get families into homes, not pushing that 
dream further and further out of reach. Therefore, I oppose Mr. 
Montgomery's nomination to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Housing and 
Urban Development and would have voted nay, had I been able to be 
present.

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