Tina Smith
Senator for Minnesota · Democratic · United States
“Today, all these years later, many of these homes are in disrepair, and the Rural Housing Service is in desperate need of reform and modernization. So Senator Mike Rounds and I got to work. Our bill, the Rural Housing Service Reform Act, makes simple, commonsense improvements.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Over 22 million people in this country are paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent, which means that they don't have enough money for the other necessities in their lives. Over 12 million people pay more than half of their income on rent. In Minnesota alone, there is a shortage of 100,000 affordable homes.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“You know, I began working on this issue when I first came to the Senate over 8 years ago, and people in Minnesota were telling me that they couldn't find an affordable place to live. Businesses were telling me that housing shortages were making it impossible for them to recruit talent to their communities.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Very importantly, this bill cracks down on large institutional investors who swoop in, make all-cash offers on homes, and then buy up single-family homes as investments and rent them back to people for a profit. Out-of-State landlords have gobbled up homes, leaving properties in disrepair, tenants in the lurch, and jacking up the rent.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“So this bill, our Rural Housing Service Reform Act, which will be included in the larger ROAD to Housing Act, will recreate the success in Saint Peter across the country, and 400,000 apartments and homes in rural communities will remain available, high quality, and affordable.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Millions of people in big cities and small towns and rural communities that we all represent stretch to pay their mortgage or make their rent payment. And the American dream of owning your own home? It feels like a pipe dream to working families.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
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“Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following interns in my office be granted floor privileges for the day: Mumtaaz Hirsi and Elijah Minicozzi.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“There will be more work to make it possible so that, every day, every American will have a home that they can afford, but this bill is an incredible step forward. I want to again thank Senator Scott and Senator Warren and their staffs for their creativity and diligence and optimism to put this bill together at a time when Congress needs more bipartisan work. I also appreciate Representatives Waters and Hill for their partnerships with the Senate to get this bill done. Passing the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will improve people's lives and help them afford a decent place to live, and that is well worth our effort. I yield the floor. Cloture Motion”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“So this bill, our Rural Housing Service Reform Act, which will be included in the larger ROAD to Housing Act, will recreate the success in Saint Peter across the country, and 400,000 apartments and homes in rural communities will remain available, high quality, and affordable. I especially want to thank Mike Rounds, my colleague from South Dakota, for being such an excellent partner and friend in this work. I want to thank Senator Shaheen for her work on preserving rural housing. I also want to thank the many advocates who helped us put this bill together. This has been a yearslong labor of love, and with the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, we are going to get it done. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will do a lot of good. Of course, there is always more work to do.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Last August, I visited the Maplewood Apartments in Saint Peter, MN, which is a small and wonderful community in southern Minnesota. Maplewood needed a lot of TLC to be a decent place for people to live, and so local nonprofits and public partners joined together to fix it up. I had a chance to see what this place meant for its residents and one resident in particular, Lisa Gallegos, who welcomed me to her new home in Maplewood. Lisa told me about how in her apartment she finally had the space to be able to focus on her life instead of worrying each month about how she would make rent. I have visited so many of these properties and heard from so many of these residents about how important this is.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Today, all these years later, many of these homes are in disrepair, and the Rural Housing Service is in desperate need of reform and modernization. So Senator Mike Rounds and I got to work. Our bill, the Rural Housing Service Reform Act, makes simple, commonsense improvements. We cut redtape to make it easier for nonprofits to assume the mortgages of these properties when the private sector can't manage them anymore and then go ahead and fix them up and preserve them for low- income renters for years to come. It simplifies the foreclosure process to save the government money and protect tenants so that properties can be transferred to new owners. It gives the Rural Housing Service more capacity to work with local banks on financing and helps them to modernize their computer systems. Here is what all this work can look like.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“The Rural Housing Service--a lot of people probably haven't heard of it, but it has played a vital role across the country for decades in helping to finance very affordable places for people to live in rural communities. We are talking about elders living on a fixed income who want to stay in the places where they raised their families. We are talking about people living with disabilities and working families, folks working in low-wage jobs that can't afford a place to live. Many of these properties built through the Rural Housing Service were built in the 1960s with the help of Federal mortgages to finance them, and often, they are literally the only affordable place to call home in many rural communities.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“You know, I began working on this issue when I first came to the Senate over 8 years ago, and people in Minnesota were telling me that they couldn't find an affordable place to live. Businesses were telling me that housing shortages were making it impossible for them to recruit talent to their communities. Mayors told me that the housing shortage was hurting the vitality of their communities. Homebuilders were telling me it was too complex and expensive to build new homes. In 2018, Senator Shaheen and I went to work, and we figured out how the USDA could do a better job of preserving affordable rural housing. Then, starting in 2022, when I became chair of the Housing Subcommittee, Senator Mike Rounds and I started to hold hearings that dug into the challenges that faced the Rural Housing Service at the USDA.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Very importantly, this bill cracks down on large institutional investors who swoop in, make all-cash offers on homes, and then buy up single-family homes as investments and rent them back to people for a profit. Out-of-State landlords have gobbled up homes, leaving properties in disrepair, tenants in the lurch, and jacking up the rent. For the first time, in this bill, we are banning big private investors from buying up the American dream of home ownership, because homes should be for people, not corporations. But I want to focus for a minute on reforms in this bill to the Rural Housing Service to preserve over 400,000 very affordable homes in rural communities. This has been a project I have been working on for quite a few years, and I am so excited that it is included in this big bill.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Over 22 million people in this country are paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent, which means that they don't have enough money for the other necessities in their lives. Over 12 million people pay more than half of their income on rent. In Minnesota alone, there is a shortage of 100,000 affordable homes. Home ownership, as we have heard today, is increasingly out of reach. Mortgage payments are roughly 40 percent higher than they were in 1990, and that is even after adjusting for inflation. And in the past few years, the median home price has reached $400,000. So all of this is why the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will make such a difference. This bill will boost housing supply by cutting redtape and empowering local governments to make it easier and less expensive to build good places for people to live.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Millions of people in big cities and small towns and rural communities that we all represent stretch to pay their mortgage or make their rent payment. And the American dream of owning your own home? It feels like a pipe dream to working families. I hear from young Minnesotans who tell me they can't even imagine a future where they own their own home. So why is this happening? There are simply more people who need a place to live than there are houses that people can afford to rent or buy. And affordable places to live for people working in low-wage jobs, for veterans, or for folks living on a fixed income? We don't have nearly enough places for these people to live. The result is that the cost of housing is soaring higher and higher.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“I ask for the yeas and nays.”
Senate3 April 2025Source ↗
“I ask for the yeas and nays.”
Senate18 February 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following fellows in my office be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 1st session of the 119th Congress: Mary Fernandes, Sarah Goldman, Adam Hasz, and Alyssa Rudelis.”
Senate12 February 2025Source ↗
“Kennedy would be an enabler to President Trump's power grab here and his undermining, along with Elon Musk, his undermining of this extremely important research that helps us be healthy, helps us find the treatments and the cures for the diseases that are a threat to all of us. So I see my colleague from Massachusetts is here. I know she has an important perspective on this, with Massachusetts being another--as is Minnesota--another center of research and education and medical education, and I suspect that we agree with one another when it comes to the threat that Robert F. Kennedy poses to all of our health and well-being. I yield the floor.”
Senate12 February 2025Source ↗
“For the Minnesotans who depend on Meals on Wheels, I vote no.”
Senate5 February 2025Source ↗
“And then it is the job of the office of OMB to make sure that those intentions are followed through in the Federal Government. And what Russell Vought wants to do is to turn that on its head. He says: I don't care what Congress said. I don't care what your representatives voted for in Congress. I am going to do it my way. And that is the most blatant power grab counter to your interests that I have ever seen. And this is why, Colleagues, it is so important that we oppose the nomination of Russell Vought. I yield the floor.”
Senate5 February 2025Source ↗
“I have a few letters I am ready to receive, but I am going to yield to the Senate minority leader, Senator Schumer from New York, so he can tell us what this means for the people of New York and the whole country.”
Senate5 February 2025Source ↗
“And that has an intimidating impact on providers who are already desperately trying to keep their head down and do their jobs while operating under the chaos that has erupted after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. So, colleagues, this should be about treating women with respect. We should be all in agreement that decisions about women's healthcare aren't different from decisions about men's healthcare or anyone's healthcare. So why would we be treating women differently? Colleagues, let's get out of the business of dictating medical care for women. Let's trust women and their doctors. I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation. I yield the floor.”
Senate21 January 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, I rise today to honor Robin Philips, who is retiring after over two decades of leadership at the Advocates For Human Rights. Robin was on the organization's delegation to document violence against women in Romania in 1994. She then founded the Advocates' Women's Human Rights Program, one of the first in the United States. Robin's work has been revolutionary in ensuring recognition for women's human rights as human rights and developing a partner-based methodology.”
Senate9 January 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter the following letter into the Congressional Record, on behalf of Ms. Klobuchar and myself. The material follows: To the Family and Friends of Mary Murphy: Our thoughts are with you and everyone who knew and loved Mary. As we are in Washington this week, we will be submitting this letter to the Congressional Record in Mary's honor.”
Senate9 January 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter the following letter into the Congressional Record, on behalf of Ms. Klobuchar and myself. The material follows: To the Family and Friends of Kari Dziedzic: Our thoughts are with you and everyone who knew and loved Kari. As we are in Washington this week, we will be submitting this letter to the Congressional Record in Kari's honor.”
Senate9 January 2025Source ↗