Senate Committee on Banking and Housing (!)
As soon as he was officially handled the gavel of what was generally known as the Senate Banking Committee, Chairman Brown (D-OH) emphasized the second jurisdictional charge in the panel’s actual name: housing. The third – urban affairs – is generally caught up in the first two, with Sen. Brown turning to all three issues in another of his agenda-setting hearings later this week. The witness line-up (see below) makes it more than clear that the chairman’s racial-equity and economic-equality objectives will be aired and, at least among Democrats, advanced. There will be many calls for the policies voiced at last week’s HFSC hearing (see Client Report REFORM202) for programs such as federal down-payment assistance and affordable-housing-supply boosts such as those advocated in the last Congress by Sen. Warren (D-MA).
