U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tennessee) fielded some questions during his appearance Thursday morning at Davy Crockett Restaurant in Morristown.

When asked what it will take to pass the SAVE Act, or Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, Hagerty said that the Republicans in the Senate are going to have to bust the filibuster to get it done.

“The Democrats will not vote for it,” Hagerty said. “The numbers are staggering. More than 90% of Republicans, 80% of independents and over 70% of the Democrats think that you should have to prove you are a U.S. Citizen to show your ID to vote. Every single democrat in the Senate votes against it. They want the ability to have very loose rules in the elections, all kinds of irregularities and come up with whatever results they want.”

Hagerty recalled former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and sent to federal prison for before receiving a pardon from President Donald Trump, who said that there is a reason that Cook County, which contains the city of Chicago, is always the last to come forward with election results.

“They need to see how the downstate vote is,” Hagerty quoted Blagojevich. “That way, they know how many votes Cook County needs to win the election.

“That is one case in point to maintain that sort of looseness in our elections and lack of security. If we can’t break the filibuster, I don’t know which one of the members over the filibuster, there is another way. We’ve sent money into the states to administer elections and security.

“We’ll have to tie it to the budget and put it through the next reconciliation package that both the house and senate are working on right now.”

Affordable Housing an Issue

Hagerty said that the biggest financial issue facing the public is housing.

“Housing is very sensitive to interest rates,” he said. “The average home mortgage is going up about $1,000 a month for an entry level house, a 40% increase for a young family. These families have to get older before they can afford to move in. We’ve got to bring that back.”

To this end, Hagerty is sponsoring the “Freedom to Build Act,” to incentivize deregulation, expand housing supply and make new homes more affordable. President Trump issued an executive order to allow the Council of Economic Advisors to analyze the “Bureaucrat Tax,” that include Environmental Protection Agency policies adopted by the Biden administration.

To address this, the “Freedom to Build Act” directs the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to create a “Freedom to Build” certification.

To qualify, localities adopt policies that unleash construction innovation, fast-track approval processes, defend property rights and family freedom, and demonstrate a consistent record of expanding housing supply.

Certified localities receive priority consideration for existing HUD housing grants.

The legislation creates no new agencies or programs and authorizes no new spending, he said.

It aligns with existing federal incentives to reward communities that reduce regulatory barriers to building new homes.

“All of these government requirements add up to about $100,000 per home,” Hagerty said. “If we could knock the price of a home down by $100,000, we could get more supply and make it easier for people to enter. We’ve also got to put pressure on local permitting processes, as well. I think the governors are getting this message that housing supply is a real issue.

“We’ve got to be putting housing in at the lower end for young families to be able to enter,” he said. “Even in manufactured housing, these regulations are adding $7,500 to the price of housing. I think the market will catch up to this. If we don’t, we’re going to have a lot more people renting and fewer people owning.”

The “Freedom to Build Act” is endorsed by the National Association of Home Builders, Leading Builders of America, National Multifamily Housing Council, The Real Estate Roundtable and Mortgage Bankers Association. Veterans’ Issues

Terry Harris, Coordinator of Veterans Services at Walters State Community College, asked Hagerty about increasing the book stipend for veterans.

The post-911 GI Bill was passed in 2009, which guaranteed Veterans $1,000 for books. Since then, the inflation rate has gone up, but the stipend has remained the same.

“I didn’t realize that,” Hagerty said. “I’m on the Appropriations Committee. It doesn’t set the overall size of the budget, but we’re responsible for trying to divide it up. At least as we try to divide, we can we can insert into the allocations for smart things like this.”