Budzinski Leads Illinois House Democrats in Demanding HUD Strengthen Housing Protections 

SPRINGFIELD, IL – Today, Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski (IL-13) led 12 members of the Illinois Delegation in a letter to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) opposing their proposed rule to rescind the existing disparate impact regulation under the Fair Housing Act without replacing it. 

“For more than a decade, state and local governments, housing providers, and advocates have structured compliance, enforcement, and programmatic decisions around HUD’s disparate impact framework,” the members wrote. “Abruptly rescinding the regulation without replacement injects significant regulatory uncertainty for public and private actors seeking to comply with the Fair Housing Act.”

“Recent federal pullbacks from disparate impact enforcement have already begun to affect state and local partners, including reduced federal engagement and reimbursement for investigations applying the disparate impact standard. Eliminating HUD’s regulation entirely would accelerate this erosion and further weaken cooperative enforcement models that Congress intended.”

While Illinois has worked hard to fix the impact of historical housing discrimination and segregation in urban, suburban, and rural communities across the state, the members emphasized that a federal disparate impact rule is still needed to ensure federal funding and compliance in support of that goal. 

The members concluded, “For these reasons, we urge HUD to withdraw this proposed rule in its entirety. At a minimum, the Department must extend the comment period to allow for meaningful public participation and fully consider the consequences this proposal would have for fair housing enforcement—particularly for communities across Illinois that continue to experience the compounded effects of housing discrimination.”

The letter is endorsed by the Housing Action Illinois:

“One of the most important ways we can address housing and homelessness in Illinois and the nation is by making sure our laws and policies protect people from discrimination, including the kinds of bias that are often hidden,” said Sharon Legenza, Executive Director of Housing Action Illinois. “We’re grateful to the members of Illinois’ House delegation who are standing up for fair housing and urging the government to maintain the current disparate impact rule, so that more people have a fair and equal chance to find a place to call home.”

The letter is signed by Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski (IL-13), Congresswoman Robin L. Kelly (IL-02), Congressman Mike Quigley (IL-05), Congressman Jesús G. “Chuy” García (IL-04), Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (IL-03) , Congressman Bradley Scott Schneider (IL-10), Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Congressman Danny K. Davis (IL-07), Congressman Bill Foster (IL-11), Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08), Congressman Jonathan L. Jackson (IL-01), Congressman Eric Sorensen (IL-17), and Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06). 

The full text of the letter is HERE and below: 

February 12, 2026

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

451 7th Street SW, Room 10276

Washington, DC 20410-0500

RE: HUD’s Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Disparate Impact Standard; Docket No. 

FR-6540-P-01

Dear Sir or Madam,

We write in strong opposition to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) proposed rule to rescind the existing disparate impact regulation under the Fair Housing Act without replacing it—a significant departure from established civil rights enforcement that would strip communities of a critical tool for challenging discrimination. This proposal would significantly weaken fair housing enforcement, undermine longstanding civil rights protections, and create uncertainty for housing providers, tenants, and the communities HUD is charged with protecting. The absence of a clear national standard would further leave regulated entities without a consistent understanding of how to comply with the Fair Housing Act, resulting in fragmented and unpredictable enforcement. HUD asserts that defining the standard for proving disparate impact violations should be left entirely to the courts.

While courts play an important role in interpreting the Fair Housing Act, HUD has an independent and ongoing statutory obligation to administer, interpret, and enforce the law. In carrying out its compliance reviews, investigations, and enforcement responsibilities, HUD must routinely interpret the Fair Housing Act in areas where courts have not spoken definitively. The Department’s disparate impact regulation exists precisely to provide clarity, consistency, and predictability in those administrative functions. Eliminating it would not defer to the courts—it would create a regulatory vacuum. The disparate impact framework HUD now proposes to eliminate is neither new nor novel. Disparate impact liability has been recognized in federal civil rights law for more than half a century, beginning with the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., which held that facially neutral employment practices that disproportionately harm protected groups and lack sufficient justification violate federal antidiscrimination law—even absent discriminatory intent. That principle has since been repeatedly reaffirmed across federal civil rights statutes.

In the fair housing context, HUD formally codified a disparate impact standard in 2013 to reflect decades of civil rights enforcement protecting vulnerable communities. In 2015, the Supreme Court confirmed that disparate impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act in Texas  Department of Housing and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD’s Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Disparate Impact Standard, holding that such claims are essential to identifying and remedying systemic discrimination that would otherwise evade detection.

While the Trump Administration later altered HUD’s disparate impact regulation, those changes did not eliminate disparate impact liability itself and were widely criticized for undermining fair housing enforcement.

In 2023, the Biden Administration restored the original 2013 framework, recognizing that it best aligned with the Fair Housing Act’s text, purpose, and governing Supreme Court precedent.6 The current proposal goes much further than any prior rulemaking by seeking to rescind HUD’s disparate impact regulation entirely—severing the Department’s enforcement practices from more than fifty years of civil rights law and established Supreme Court doctrine.

In Illinois, we see firsthand how housing discrimination and segregation—both historical and ongoing—continue to shape access to opportunity, even as the State works to counteract these forces through strong statutory protections. Communities across the state, including in urban, suburban, and rural communities alike, still bear the legacy of redlining, exclusionary zoning, and discriminatory infrastructure and siting decisions.

Today, these patterns often persist without explicit discriminatory intent, yet they produce lasting and measurable disparities in health outcomes, environmental exposure, economic opportunity, and housing stability.

Illinois has taken proactive steps to preserve and strengthen disparate impact protections at the state level. In 2024, Illinois enacted comprehensive amendments to the Illinois Human Rights Act clarifying and codifying disparate impact liability in housing, reinforcing fair housing enforcement regardless of changes in federal regulatory posture.

However, state-level action cannot fully substitute robust federal enforcement. HUD’s disparate impact regulation plays a critical role in setting national standards, guiding federal investigations and funding decisions, and ensuring consistent protections across jurisdictions. Weakening the federal framework will still have significant consequences for enforcement capacity, intergovernmental coordination, and fair housing outcomes nationwide.

Public statements by HUD leadership characterizing disparate impact as a “discredited theory” and minimizing the relevance of environmental impacts reflect an unduly narrow understanding of the Fair Housing Act. The Act makes clear that housing discrimination is not limited to the four walls of a home, recognizing that access to safe housing is inseparable from the surrounding conditions that affect a person’s health, safety, and livelihood. Rejecting decades of evidence documenting how facially neutral policies disproportionately harm people in poverty and communities of color does not make that harm imaginary or unlawful to acknowledge. It

only ensures that systemic discrimination remains unaddressed under the guise of neutrality.

Research conducted by the University of Illinois’ College of Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences underscores this reality. Their work demonstrates how housing discrimination contributes directly to environmental inequality, with marginalized communities more likely to be exposed to pollution, environmental hazards, and chronic underinvestment.11 Recognizing these connections is not an expansion of the Fair Housing Act; it is a faithful application of its text and purpose.

HUD’s proposal would also have serious and disproportionate consequences for women, particularly survivors of domestic violence. Across the country, including in Illinois, local nuisance and so-called “crime-free” housing ordinances often penalize tenants for repeated calls to emergency services, even when those calls result from domestic violence, assault, or stalking. Because these ordinances frequently lack exemptions for emergency calls related to abuse, women experiencing domestic violence are often forced to choose between seeking safety and remaining housed. Eliminating HUD’s disparate impact framework would make it significantly harder to challenge these practices and would weaken protections for women seeking safe, stable housing.

We are also deeply concerned by the inadequate 30-day comment period provided for this sweeping proposal.

HUD’s assertion that prior rulemakings on disparate impact justify an abbreviated comment period is unpersuasive and a blatant attempt to limit meaningful public input.13 In none of those instances did the Department propose to eliminate its disparate impact regulations entirely. 

Stakeholders have never had the opportunity to comment on a proposal of this magnitude, and meaningful public participation requires adequate time for review and analysis.

For more than a decade, state and local governments, housing providers, and advocates have structured compliance, enforcement, and programmatic decisions around HUD’s disparate impact framework. Abruptly rescinding the regulation without replacement injects significant regulatory uncertainty for public and private actors seeking to comply with the Fair Housing Act.

Recent federal pullbacks from disparate impact enforcement have already begun to affect state and local partners, including reduced federal engagement and reimbursement for investigations applying the disparate impact standard. Eliminating HUD’s regulation entirely would accelerate this erosion and further weaken cooperative enforcement models that Congress intended.

For these reasons, we urge HUD to withdraw this proposed rule in its entirety. At a minimum, the Department must extend the comment period to allow for meaningful public participation and fully consider the consequences this proposal would have for fair housing enforcement—particularly for communities across Illinois that continue to experience the compounded effects of housing discrimination.

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