LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A popular housing bill that passed Congress by overwhelming margins last month will likely become law on Friday, without the distinctive Sharpie signature of President Donald Trump.
WATCH | Housing bill will be law, sans Trump signature
Trump declared on Truth Social on Friday that he wouldn't sign the bill because the Senate had failed to pass an election bill that would require proof of U.S. citizenship before a person could register to vote.
But under the Constitution, if a president doesn't sign a bill sent to him by Congress, it becomes a law without his signature.
Trump could also have chosen to veto the bill, but the large vote margins make an override vote likely, and that would hand the president a public defeat that he doesn't want. (The House approved the bill 358-32, while the Senate passed it 85-5. An override vote requires a two-thirds supermajority in both houses, 290 votes in the House and 67 in the Senate.)
The bill streamlines regulations, provides grants for new home construction and helps veterans get home funding, among other things.
Rep. Dina Titus told Channel 13 in an interview Friday that Trump's move shows he doesn't really support the bill.
"It was a fit of pique when he refused to sign it because he wanted his SAVE Act. Now the SAVE Act isn't going to pass, and if it did, it would be terrible," Titus said.
"What that means is, yes the [housing] policy is accomplished, but he's [Trump] not going to put his weight behind being sure that it's administered or that it works the way it was intended, or this becomes a big issue on the agenda for future investment. So you don't have his commitment to it, and I think it says a lot about him."
Trump has told reporters that he thinks the housing bill is "minor," and "a yawner," even after its authors included a provision capping the number of single-family homes a corporation can own. Trump issued an executive order on that subject in January.
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