Rep. Gosar Continues Fight against Obama Takeover of Local Zoning Decisions
WASHINGTON, D.C. – (RealEstateRama) — U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after submitting a language request to the House Appropriations Committee that would prevent any funds from being used to carry out the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule promulgated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD):
“The new AFFH regulation is Obama’s latest attempt to allow Washington bureaucrats to dictate the makeup of your neighborhood. The House has resoundingly rejected this utopian community take-over multiple times. This draconian rule has nothing to do with fair housing, as housing discrimination based on race has been illegal for more than 40 years. It’s about control, plain and simple.
“I believe that people should be able to live where they want, that there should be less government involvement in the everyday lives of the American people, and that the federal government should stop arbitrarily punishing our communities through nonsensical new regulations. My message to President Obama is clear: the House has our own weapon called the ‘power of the purse’ and my colleagues and I plan to use it to defund this new Washington mandate.”
Background:
The full text of the language request can be found HERE.
The AFFH rule uses the disparate impact legal theory to justify social engineering of local neighborhoods, withholding Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds from towns and cities unless they meet utopian standards of integration based on sex, income, religion, race, and other federally protected demographics. HUD has essentially created a set of rules and regulations to which communities must conform, or face losing out on tens of millions of dollars in grant money annually.
The House of Representatives has voted twice to defund the AFFH rule by passing amendments during consideration of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development funding bills for fiscal years 2015 and 2016.
On July 16, 2015 HUD published its final overreaching AFFH rule. The assessment tool that will be used to carry out this new mandate was published in the federal register on December 31, 2015 and requires local communities that receive CDBG funds and other important federal housing grants to begin submitting onerous new assessments after October 4, 2016.
Congressman Gosar was joined by 12 members of the House in submitting this language request including: Brian Babin, Rod Blum, Will Carraco, Scott DesJarlais, Jeff Duncan, John Fleming, Glenn Grothman, Peter King, Thomas Massie, Tom McClintock, Randy Weber and Ted Yoho.
Contact: Steven D. Smith
Steven.Smith (at) mail.house (dot) gov
Source: Congressman Paul A. Gosar
