House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) predicted that President Bush ultimately will sign the mortgage foreclosure relief bill now working its way through Congress because it will include several major items that the Administration wants, including stronger regulation of the housing government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and FHA modernization. In a May 23 speech to the American Bar Association forum on affordable housing and community development law, Frank said the legislation could be the most important housing bill since the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act of 1990. Frank cited the 19-2 vote for approval of the Senate foreclosure relief bill in the Senate Banking Committee, with eight of 10 committee Republicans voting in favor, as an indication that the legislation will gain the President's support. "If you are a member of the same party, you don't make the President veto things that you have an aversion to," he said. "I am encouraged that the Senate is moving on this." (For a related report on the Senate bill, see p. 323.)
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