Waters teases housing focus on HFSC
- Key insight: Waters said that housing would be a priority for the panel under her leadership.
- What’s at stake: She listed deposit insurance reform and AI bills as potential legislative targets.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., promised to focus more keenly on housing on the House Financial Services Committee if she returns as its chair in a five page letter shared with colleagues in a detailed preview of her focus atop the committee.
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Waters faces a challenge to her leadership on the panel, which she has chaired previously, from Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill. In a dear colleague letter, designed to convince her caucus to vote for her to continue leading the committee, Waters outlined her plans for the panel in the future.
Notably those plans include renaming the committee the Committee on Housing and Financial Services in order to “put housing first.” On the housing front, Water said she would work on “expanding affordable housing programs and reforming mortgage finance.”
Mortgage finance is an area where banks, many of which have
She also promised to create new leadership positions for junior members, including a committee whip, a freshman representative and committee messenger.
Her list of priorities includes a number of old favorites from the senior lawmaker. She said she would eliminate “junk” fees like overdraft fees, restore the independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and protect the Community Reinvestment Act and other civil rights era legislation.
On community banking, Waters said she would help the industry by reforming deposit insurance and support Community Development Financial Institutions and Minority Owned Institutions.
She added oversight of prediction markets and the Trump administration’s crypto dealings to her docket, and said that she would pursue legislation to “AI proof” the economy. She also said she would “expand” access to Federal Reserve master accounts, and would reform the central bank “from its governance to its discount window lending.”
Although Democrats won control of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections, Waters has little ability to pass partisan legislation into law with President Donald Trump wielding veto power in the White House.
But Waters is known as a dealmaker, despite her progressive brand, and has many friends across the aisle, including current Chair French Hill, R-Ark., with whom she’s worked on a number of legislative packages, including
Casten’s letter is thinner on specifics, and he faces a tougher road to be elected chair of the committee. He said in his dear colleague letter that “the American people have made clear that the status quo is not sufficient.”
