Congress just did something rare: it passed a big housing bill with both parties on board. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is meant to make homes easier to build and cheaper to buy, and it cleared the House and headed to President Trump's desk on June 23, 2026.

Tom Tiffany says he's all for it. There's just one problem: when it was time to actually vote, he didn't show up. Not once. Not twice. Three times.

The only Wisconsin House member who didn't vote yes

Spectrum News 1 dug into the record and found that every time the housing bill came up for a House vote — on February 9, May 20, and June 23 — Tiffany was marked "Not Voting."

The final House vote on June 23 wasn't close. It passed 358 to 32. Republicans and Democrats voted for it together. And on the official roll call, next to Tiffany's name, it says one thing: "Not Voting."

He was the only member of Wisconsin's House delegation who didn't vote "Yea." Everyone else from the state — Republicans and Democrats — showed up and voted for it. Tiffany didn't.

"Scheduling conflicts"

So where was he? Tiffany's campaign told Spectrum News he missed the votes because of "scheduling conflicts." His spokesperson said the February and June votes fell on "fly-in days," and that on May 20 his flight got in too late. The spokesperson said Tiffany "would have voted 'Yea' in support of the bill had he been there."

Here's the thing about that excuse: showing up to vote is the job. The House publishes its calendar far in advance, and members plan their travel around the votes, not the other way around. Missing one vote happens to almost everyone. Missing the same bill three separate times, when it's a top issue you claim to care about, is a pattern.

And it's a strange bill to keep missing, because Tiffany has been telling voters it's exactly what he's fighting for.

He ran ads on the very ideas in the bill

Tiffany isn't just a congressman. He's running for governor of Wisconsin. And housing is one of his campaign talking points.

In an April campaign ad, Tiffany promised a "Red Tape Reset" to "cut burdensome regulations that drive up housing costs, speed up permitting, and make it easier to build homes." He also said he'd "stop Wall Street investors from buying up single-family homes so Wisconsin families have a fair shot at homeownership."

Those aren't random ideas. They're two of the main things the housing bill he skipped actually does — cutting red tape to build more homes and taking on investors who snap up houses. So when the real bill came up, the one that would put those promises into law, Tiffany was nowhere to be found on the vote board.

It's easy to say you support cheaper housing in a campaign ad. It's harder to be in your seat when it counts. Tiffany did the first and skipped the second.

This is a pattern for Tiffany

Being the lone Wisconsin outlier is nothing new for Tom Tiffany. Over and over, when the rest of his state's delegation lands one way, Tiffany goes the other:

• He was the only member of Wisconsin's congressional delegation to sign onto the Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to throw out the 2020 election results in four states Joe Biden won — including Wisconsin's own votes. The court rejected it.
• He was the only member of Wisconsin's delegation — and one of just 14 House Republicans in the whole country — to vote against making Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery, a federal holiday.

Now, on a popular bipartisan bill to make housing cheaper, he's the odd one out again — this time by not voting at all.

Dodging is becoming his brand

The missed votes fit a bigger habit. Tiffany has also spent the past year ducking his own constituents. After a few in-person listening sessions in early 2025, he switched to telephone town halls with a friendly, screened audience. When people lined up outside his Wausau office asking for a real town hall, he refused to hold one.

See the pattern? Skip the town hall. Skip the vote. Take credit for the popular idea anyway.

Wisconsin families dealing with high rents and home prices deserve a representative who does more than run ads about housing. They deserve one who shows up. On this bill, three times in a row, Tom Tiffany didn't — and he wants a promotion to governor.

Source

This post is based on reporting from Spectrum News 1: "Wisconsin congressman says he supports bipartisan housing legislation he didn't vote for", July 9, 2026. Photo: Spectrum News 1 / TWC News.