Though Washington laments the slow demise of civility within Congress, bipartisanship, at least when it comes to legislating, is usually a bad thing. It only emerges when both sides want to waste taxpayer money on things nobody wants and to regulate things everybody likes.

So it’s shocking that Democrats and Republicans on the Senate banking committee united not just to take on a big responsibility, but also that the end result is a bill that is … good?

The vote to advance the Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream to Housing Act of 2025, abbreviated to the ROAD to Housing Act, was voted through the committee unanimously, 24-0. The 315-page bill constituted the committee’s first markup of housing legislation in 17 years and its first major stab at a housing bill of this century. The bill, championed by Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the committee chairman and ranking member, respectively, is neither perfect nor comprehensive. But even if it only begins to solve the housing affordability crisis, it at least takes the problem out of the jurisdiction of monetary and financial policy and puts the onus back on Congress to do its job.

Because the nation’s housing affordability crisis is really a housing supply crisis, the most important portions of the ROAD to Housing Act are where it either allows the federal government to relax regulations or where it weaponizes federal funding to force localities to relax regulations. The bill allows the Department of Housing and Urban Development to both classify certain........

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