San Jose lawmaker pushes housing bills in Congress

It’s been a busy nine months for Democratic Congressman Sam Liccardo — Silicon Valley’s newest lawmaker in the House of Representatives.

The former San Jose mayor turned Congressional District 16 representative has introduced nine bills since taking office in the 119th Congress this year. They range from proposals to protect Medicaid from sweeping federal spending cuts, barring national lawmakers from promoting cryptocurrency that benefits them and restricting President Donald Trump’s National Guard deployments. He’s also co-sponsored 33 other bills from his colleagues.

But his freshman year hasn’t been without difficulty. Republicans have an edge over Democrats in the House — though it shrank from six votes to five in recent days with Democrat Adelita Grijalva winning the Arizona seat held by her late father, former Rep. Raúl Grijalva —  requiring buy-in from across the aisle if he wants any of his proposals to pass. Yet there’s one area where Liccardo has been successful in getting bipartisan support: housing.

“This is one of those areas where we can find some common ground with Republicans,” Liccardo told San José Spotlight.

He’s introduced three bills on housing so far, with a fourth expected in the next couple of weeks.

One is the Supply Act, which would essentially boost production of backyard homes through mortgages. Another is the Unlock Act, which Liccardo says will make Community Development Block Grants more flexible for cities and counties to use to construct affordable housing. The third is the BUILD Housing Act, which similarly aims to help accelerate housing construction with other federal fund sources like HOME grants, which provide funding to state and local governments to for low-income housing. All three bills are in committee.

“None of those are home runs that will solve the housing crisis (alone),” Liccardo said. “But the good news is that we have Republican cosponsors for each one of those, two of which have already been absorbed in the Senate and there are Senate companion bills in those cases. All that is to say there’s an opportunity for Congress to work the way it’s supposed to work. Perhaps the solutions aren’t the same ones that I would pick if it were a Democratic majority, but they’re solutions nonetheless. We need all of them.”

Liccardo became Silicon Valley’s newest congressman this year, after a bitter and unusual race for former Rep Anna Eshoo’s seat against former Assemblymember Evan Low last November. The election was marked by unprecedented electoral ties, a contentious recount and dueling charges of ethics violations.

Since then, Liccardo has hit the ground running. He’s introduced bills to empower local governments to sue the federal government for failing to provide federal funds, to increase the Golden Gate National Recreation Area by 900 acres, and to limit taxes on American families sending money to loved ones overseas.

But in other avenues, Liccardo finds himself stuck. Federal Medicaid cuts — as well as cuts to the Substance Abuse Mental Health Funding Act — render his campaign promises of reopening federal funding streams for large mental health facilities infeasible. His office is exploring other ways forward, namely through hiring a Stanford University fellow to research legislative ideas for accelerating FDA drug approval for substance abuse treatment.

Taking a position

He’s also reluctantly thrown his support behind Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to redistrict California’s congressional offices with the goal of gaining more House seats. Proposition 50, which will come before voters statewide on Nov. 4, is a response to simultaneous efforts in Texas to gerrymander five seats in favor of Republicans.

“I hate redistricting and gerrymandering, but I view this as a necessary but temporary response to the authoritarian takeover of our electoral system,” Liccardo said. “There’s plenty not to like here, but I publicly support it because we don’t have any other choice and we can’t take a knife into a gunfight.”

He notes what California voters are mulling in November is not the same as what’s happening in Texas.

“There are very important distinctions,” he said. “The voters are actually considering them here in California, not the White House drawing them up and telling the Texas Legislature how to implement them.”

Yet a recent executive order on homelessness from Trump finds Liccardo cautiously aligning with a policy area he wrestled with as mayor. Trump’s order limits federal support for programs that prioritize permanent housing in favor of mandatory mental health treatment — a policy direction Liccardo’s successor Mayor Matt Mahan, who Liccardo endorsed, has championed.

Liccardo said he supports the Housing First model, but argues some advocates have adhered to it too strictly and narrowly — hamstringing cities’ response. At the same time, Liccardo said Trump is contradicting his own order via cuts to Medicaid and the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Act.

“You can’t cut a trillion dollars in Medicaid funding – you can’t cut funding for the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Act – and then talk about how you’ll solve homelessness with a mental health or drug treatment approach,” he said.

Santa Clara County’s system of four hospitals and 15 health clinics are mostly reliant on Medicaid reimbursements. But the July signing of H.R. 1 — also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” — makes sweeping cuts to the federal insurance program. That will translate to approximately $4.4 billion in revenue losses to the county hospital system over the next five years.

In response, county leaders are pushing a five-eighths cent sales tax increase, known as Measure A, which will go before county voters Nov. 4 and bring in an estimated $330 million annually if approved.

Liccardo has also co-sponsored a bill with Congressman Adam Gray aimed at reversing some of the Medicaid cuts and extending tax credits — set to expire at the end of the year — for people enrolled in health plans under the Affordable Care Act.

“That’s going to be pretty devastating if they expire. But in particular, for the 21 million Americans who would see their premiums double,” Liccardo said.

He said a focus between him and colleagues is getting Republicans with wobbly knees to “buck up.”

“What people are doing out on the streets matters,” Liccardo said. “Our residents need to know that — the fact people can see other Americans on the street protesting is having an effect on (Trump’s) ratings and that affects how his colleagues in Congress view their willingness to stay with him.”

Liccardo is working in an environment where political violence — including the assassinations of Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and conservative influencer Charlie Kirk — have fueled hyper-partisanship and made policymaking difficult.

“I have had conversations with other Republican colleagues who I’ve urged to get onto different bills that I’ve led, and I’ve had a few interesting responses. ‘Hey, I know I’ve got a safe seat but I’m actually concerned because I’ve got kids,'” Liccardo said. “I could talk about a lot of bills we’ve introduced and so forth, but it won’t be terribly impressive until we can actually get Republicans on those bills.”