Senior House lawmakers late Wednesday reached a bipartisan deal on housing affordability legislation and scheduled a floor vote for next week.

The final House text would maintain restrictions on Wall Street’s purchase of single-family homes — a priority for President Donald Trump — but would significantly scale back the Senate bill’s limitations on so-called institutional investors in the housing market.

If the House passes its legislation, the bill would have to go back to the Senate for final approval before it reaches Trump’s desk — even as the White House has pushed the lower chamber to pass the Senate’s 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act as-is.

House leadership is aiming to pass the bill under suspension of rules, a fast-track procedure that limits debate, prohibits further amendments on the floor and requires a two-thirds majority. House Financial Services Chair French Hill said earlier on Wednesday that bill text would be posted once an agreement was reached and fully expected the support of ranking member Maxine Waters.

The bill text contains changes to language aimed at limiting the ability of large institutional investors to purchase housing by narrowing the definition of “single-family home,” which could make it possible for private equity firms and other large companies to purchase more homes than the previous version allowed, which is in line with draft text previously reported by POLITICO on Saturday.

The definition of a single-family home would now exclude manufactured housing and homes that have been renovated for sale, among others, according to the text.

The House bill would also strip a controversial Senate provision that would require single-family homes built by large institutional investors as long-term rentals to be sold after seven years to individual homebuyers. The housing industry and affordable housing advocates have opposed the language, arguing that it could disincentivize investment in a large segment of housing stock. There is no requirement for private equity firms to sell single-family homes they currently own or obtain in the future, whether newly built long-term single-family rental homes or otherwise, according to the bill text.

Notably, the House’s amended version of the bill will preserve a five-year ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a digital dollar, which GOP hardliners strongly opposed, arguing that a temporary ban is worse than no ban at all. Members of the House Freedom Caucus previously said they would not vote for the Senate’s housing bill due to the sunsetting ban on a central bank digital currency.

The legislation also contains 12 community banking provisions, which has been a priority of Hill this Congress. The deregulation provisions were excluded from the Senate’s bill and aim to be less burdensome for community banks.

Portions of the Senate’s 21st ROAD to Housing Act that were fully removed include language that would eliminate the cap on the number of properties eligible for HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program; a permanent authorization of the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery program; and the requirement that Federal Housing Administration mortgage disclosures include cost comparison information for veteran homebuyers so they are aware of their Veteran Affairs benefits.

Additionally the House preserved the Build Now Act, which would increase funding through HUD’s CDBG program for communities that build more housing than previously and decrease funding if the housing growth rate is below its previous median rate for that locality. This has been a legislative priority for Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) and was included in Senate crypto bill text released Monday.

Activist Denise Powell won the Democratic primary for one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities this fall after a prolonged vote count in an Omaha-based congressional district.

The Associated Press called the race Wednesday evening. With an estimated just shy of 90 percent of votes counted, Powell led state Sen. John Cavanaugh 38.9 percent to 36.8 percent, with court clerk Crystal Rhoades a distant third.

She will face Republican Brinker Harding in November for the chance to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon in just one of three districts former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024 that is currently represented by a Republican.

Powell, who ran a PAC in Nebraska supporting women for elected office, was supported by EMILY’s List and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, whose affiliated groups combined to spend more than $1 million for her in the race. That pitted them against the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which backed Cavanaugh.

Powell also benefited from millions in outside spending — both supporting her and attacking Cavanaugh — that came from groups backed by dark money nonprofits or that showed signs characteristic of Republican meddling.

Outside groups, along with Powell and Rhoades, made the case that Cavanaugh’s candidacy could endanger Nebraska’s “blue dot” that has yielded one electoral vote for Democrats because Nebraska’s governor would get to appoint the replacement for his blue Omaha-area state legislative seat.

Money is likely to continue to flow in for the general election as the district is one of Democrats’ top targets as they look to take back the House.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in closed-door testimony to Congress refuted accusations that he maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein years after he claimed he had cut ties.

Lutnick, who has faced harsh criticism for his ties with the convicted sex offender as part of a global reckoning sparked by the release of long-sealed documents, told the House Oversight Committee that his conflicting statements weren’t intentional, according to a transcript released Wednesday.

The commerce secretary, who previously was CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, had said in a podcast interview that he cut ties with Epstein in 2005 — a fact contradicted in the documents released by the Justice Department under a law passed by Congress.

“I was describing 20 years later a conversation I had with my wife. It was informal. It wasn’t trying to be literal,” Lutnick said of his comments on the New York Post podcast last year.

Documents within the files released by the Justice Department showed that Lutnick and his family visited the sex offender’s island in 2012 — about four years after Epstein’s conviction in Florida on charges that included soliciting prostitution from a minor.

That contradicted his podcast interview in which he said he had known for years that Epstein was a “disgusting person” and he would “never be in the room” under any circumstances.

But he told the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the Epstein case, that he wasn’t being literal, according to the transcript.

“It was trying to tell a story and be descriptive, which I thought was an accurate description, which was that I would avoid establishing a professional and personal relationship with him,” he said.

The Commerce secretary’s interview with Congress was unusual, in part, because he was questioned by a panel led by his own party. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) had threatened to force a subpoena vote for his testimony, before the Oversight Committee announced that he would appear voluntarily.

The politics of Lutnick’s interview are also complicated by the fact that the Trump administration has been repeatedly attacked for ties between the president and Epstein, who died in jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

During the interview, Lutnick declined to discuss whether he had spoken with President Donald Trump about Epstein.

Lutnick claimed that he had “virtually nonexistent interactions” with Epstein, who became his next-door neighbor when he moved into a renovated New York City home in 2005. That year, he and his wife had been invited to Epstein’s home for coffee.

“During this brief interaction that included my wife, me, and this individual, he made a crude and gross remark in my wife’s presence, which caused us to cut the visit short and leave,” he recalled.

Epstein led Lutnick and his wife on a tour of his home, showing them a table where he told them he would get the “right kind of massage,” the Commerce secretary told the committee.

At that point, Lutnick and his wife vowed not to “establish a personal or professional relationship” with Epstein, he said.

Lutnick later met with Epstein in 2011 at the request of Epstein’s office to discuss, from what he could recall, scaffolding. About 18 months later, Epstein’s staff sent an invitation to the Caribbean island.

“My family of six and another family of six, had a brief, meaningless, and inconsequential lunch and then left,” Lutnick said. “To the best of my recollection, those were the only three occasions in which I interacted with Epstein in person. Each and every one was meaningless and inconsequential.”

The committee also released a transcript of its recent interview with Ted Waitt, the businessman and philanthropist who once dated Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator. Waitt told investigators he met Maxwell and Epstein in November 2003 in Hong Kong and later developed a yearslong romantic relationship with her.

He described Epstein as “off-putting” and said he hesitated to spend time with him, in part, because of Epstein’s previous relationship with Maxwell. And he recalled that in 2010 he brought Maxwell to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. Neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

“I can say unequivocally that if I knew then what I know now about Ms. Maxwell, I never would’ve befriended her or allowed her to be around my four children, three of whom are girls and who, at that point, ranged in age from 8 to 14,” Waitt said. “I never would’ve spent 6 years in a romantic relationship with her.”