Bipartisan efforts to address housing accessibility and affordability are becoming more common, though many are at the state level. Now federal legislation introduced by U.S. Sens. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., could help increase home ownership in rural regions by expanding eligibility for credit through farm credit institutions.

“This bill is a result of Senator Welch and me working across the aisle to get a result for our rural communities because, at the end of the day, they matter more than party lines. When you do that, you can get good things done for the American people,” Justice told media outlet News of the United States (NOTUS).

According to the report, updating the Farm Credit Act of 1971 could mean approximately 30 million more rural homebuyers getting access to loans through the Farm Credit System.

In talking about his partnership with Justice, Welch told NOTUS, “We just share, I think, a real commitment to the rural people in our states that we represent. We’ve just had a common orientation towards trying to do things that are going to be beneficial to rural America.”

Doing better for rural — and all of — America isn’t a left or right issue. In fact, when all sides work together to keep moving in that common direction, the solution to the problem might be better than anything one side or the other might have cooked up.

Our region’s representatives in Washington, D.C., must not stop looking for ways to work across the aisle to actually get something done — for us.

Meanwhile, it is also encouraging to know Welch understands the importance of working with another prominent West Virginia figure, if he really wants to get something done.

He told NOTUS, “Senator Justice and I are going to be bothering people constantly in an effort to get this, and we’ve always got the backup help of Babydog.”