Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump's secret formula is that he discovered that many voters are very ignorant and he has exploited that to the max. Democrats now have a chance to play the same game if they want to.
Last week, Congress sent Trump a bipartisan housing bill. It passed the House 358-32 and the Senate 85-5. The bill was aimed at alleviating the housing shortage. Among other things, it loosens regulations to make it easier to build houses, provides grants to renovate abandoned buildings, streamlines zoning, allows cities to use certain HUD funds for housing construction, and does a number of other things—nothing spectacular, but together they do help.
Trump refused to sign the bill. He also didn't veto it. According to the Constitution, as long as Congress is in session, a bill that passes both chambers and is neither signed nor vetoed becomes law after 10 days. The housing bill became law on Friday.
It is our guess that very few voters understand this somewhat peculiar default rule in the Constitution. It was designed to prevent the chief executive from killing a bill by just stuffing it in a desk drawer and doing nothing. Again, our guess is that large numbers of voters assume that a bill must be signed by the president to become a law.
This means the Democrats can now campaign on "Congress passed a bipartisan bill that would have reduced housing costs and Trump refused to sign it. He doesn't care that you can't pay your rent or mortgage. All he cares about is himself, not you." No need to mention what happened to the bill, but the above statement is true. In a campaign where affordability is going to be a top issue, pointing out every way Trump could have reduced costs and decided not to could be a strong argument. Democrats need to marshal every argument they can find about why Republicans refuse to help them on affordability, and this one is another piece of ammo, even if it is slightly misleading. After all, Trump could have proudly signed the bill on national television and chose not to. That's on him. (V)