Marshall plans CCCA amendment to housing bill

If at first you don't succeed, try again. That seems to be the thinking behind a plan hatched by Senator Roger Marshall to attach the Credit Card Competition Act to a housing bill now pending before the U.S. Senate.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the committee's ranking Democrat, addresses housing affordability, including a provision limiting institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes. It also includes provisions of similar legislation that has already been approved by the House and it has the backing of the Trump Administration.

Sen. Marshall filed a proposed amendment that would attach the Credit Card Competition Act to the legislation, a spokesman for the senator confirmed.

The CCCA, authored by Senators Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Marshall, aims to upend the credit card market by requiring card issuers to program their cards to allow merchants the choice between two networks for processing their credit card transactions with the stipulation that only one of those networks can be owned by Mastercard or Visa.

The bill, introduced in January 2026 replicates legislation the two senators introduced in the last session of Congress and attempted to secure its passage by attaching it as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act in both 2023 and 2024. Both attempts were shot down, however.

Groundhog day in March?

Word of Marshall's plan was immediately decried by opponents of the CCCA. "Groundhog day might have been last month, but Senators Durbin and Marshall are replaying the same failed script – desperately trying to jam their economy-crushing credit card mandates onto any bill moving through Congress," said Richard Hunt, executive committee chairman of the Electronic Payments Coalition.

"While the proposal is often framed as promoting competition, the reality is that it would impose a government routing mandate on credit unions and other financial institutions that risks undermining the secure, reliable payments system millions of Americans rely on every day," said Jason Stverak, chief advocacy officer at the Defense Credit Union Council.

"Similar government intervention in the debit card market did not deliver the promised savings for consumers but instead led to fewer benefits and higher costs for many households," Stverak added. "Congress should not repeat that mistake – particularly by inserting such sweeping changes into legislation focused on housing policy."

"[A]ttaching the Credit Card Competition Act to a housing bill would do nothing to address the housing affordability challenges facing working families," said Scott Simpson, president and CEO of America's Credit Unions, a credit union trade association.

The bill, Simpson added, would "disrupt a secure and well-functioning credit card system in ways that hurt consumers and small financial institutions, including increased fraud risk, weakened consumer protections, and limited access to affordable credit for millions of credit union members."

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