House Republicans shoot down possible housing-crypto trade with Senate

House Republicans are rejecting the prospect of accepting a Senate housing package in exchange for the upper chamber including a slate of community bank deregulatory bills in pending cryptocurrency legislation, dashing hopes that the trade could resolve a housing bill standoff between the two bodies.

“So our good stuff for their bad stuff — not sure I buy that,” said Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), who serves as vice chair of the House Financial Services Committee.

Senate Banking Republicans discussed the possible trade at a closed-door meeting last week. Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican who chairs a Senate Banking subcommittee on housing, helped pitch the idea to other GOP senators. But House lawmakers say adding their bipartisan banking bills to the crypto market structure measure is not enough to get them to swallow a Senate-approved housing affordability package that they hope to amend.

“There’s other things in the housing bill that we need to look at,” said Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.), who chairs a House Financial Services subcommittee on housing.

A spokesperson for Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Scott and Senate Banking ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are pushing the House to accept their bill as-is.

The House included the community bank deregulatory measures in a housing bill it passed in February, but the provisions were left out of the housing measure that the Senate passed this month. The banking bills, which supporters say will increase access to mortgages, are a priority for House Republicans, but they say they have an array of outstanding issues with the Senate’s housing bill that need to be addressed.

“This needs to be part of a conversation,” said Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), who sits on House Financial Services. “Simply throwing something over from the Senate and expecting everybody to get on board with a half-baked idea doesn’t get us to where we need to be.”

Rep. Andy Barr, a senior Kentucky Republican on House Financial Services who is running for Senate, indicated he likes the idea of tucking bank deregulatory measures into the crypto legislation. But, he said, “we want some of our housing ideas included, too.”

“I don’t know why they wouldn’t entertain some of our bipartisan housing ideas,” he said.

Katherine Hapgood contributed to this report.