The AFFH is nothing more than a power play by Democrats to dilute Republican influence in the higher income areas, the suburbs, and the country.
Last summer, a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule known as “The Affirmitively Furthering Fair Housing Rule” (AFFH) came to the attention of conservatives in the United States. With this rule, the Obama Administration intends to use block grants to force middle class neighborhoods to integrate racially, by withholding federal funds unless the neighborhood in question has subjectively acceptable racial quotas. The Senate refuses to block this effort.
On Thursday, May 19, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced an amendment to the 2017 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Legislation that would have blocked the Obama Administration from interfering in local zoning laws, thus nullifying the HUD AFFH rule that would, as so many fear, basically destroy American middle class neighborhoods. The Senate voted Lee’s amendment down 60-37 in favor of a competing amendment from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that critics like Dan Bongino claim will do nothing to stop HUD and the feds from more or less block busting on a large scale.
Briefly, here’s what happened. Conservative superstar Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced a measure to defund and stop implementation of this horrible Obama rule and, instead of proudly jumping onboard to fight a noble fight for hard-working Americans’ homes, a bunch of sell-out Republicans, afraid of being disingenuously labeled anti-poor or racist (both absurd claims) decided to back an alternative amendment offered by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) which effectively does nothing to stop the Obama AFFH rule from being implemented. The Collins amendment simply allows sell-outs within the GOP Senate ranks to say they “did something” against the rule although the Collins rule does nothing to stop its intended implementation.
What does Collins have to say about this? From the Washington Examiner:
“This amendment prohibits HUD from intervening in local zoning matters,” Collins said. “This is an important clarification that should take away any fear that there is any possibility of using HUD funds authorized by this bill to intervene in local zoning decisions.”
But, as Bongino points out, the amendment does nothing to stop the feds from holding block grants and federal assistance to local governments hostage if the racial make-up of any one locale does not reflect their desires. (Do members of the Senate ALL live in gated communities to not get this?)
The big fear for conservatives, of course, is not simply safety and security, but maintaining property values. Hard-working middle class Americans sacrifice a lot to purchase housing in select areas, and forcing municipal governments to subsidize housing in order to manufacture racial quotas is going to effect that. It’s just a reality, and it is not hypothetical, either. Patterns such as this have repeated multiple times over the course of the last century as decent, low cost housing was demolished to build large-scale, low income housing projects, and larger dwellings were rezoned to be boarding houses, both of which changed the character of the neighborhoods and not for the better, as the people who were escaping squallor still brought social ills with them. (This happened A LOT in the city where I live.) That does not change until property values are completely destroyed and areas are regentrified and restored.
This is why to say that the Senate sold out the people is not too strong a statement. Without a reversal in executive orders, federal block grants will not go to areas without specific racial make-up forcing change whether the people want it or not.
UPDATE:
On Friday’s Mark Levin show, Dan Bongino, Contributing Editor at Conservative Review, fills in for Mark. Conservatives are tired of being sold out by the GOP. When it comes to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation, there was a clear cut effort by Senate conservatives to stop it. However, some Republicans decided to sell out and join with the Democrats in tabling an amendment that would have stopped the AFFH and voted in favor of Susan Collin’s amendment. The Collins amendment is ineffective and does nothing more but protect those who are responsible for supporting and promoting AFFH. In addition, the AFFH is nothing more than a power play by Democrats to dilute Republican influence in the higher income areas, the suburbs, and the country.
