The Senate confirmed Marcia Fudge as secretary of Housing and Urban Development, nearly completing the work of filling President Biden’s Cabinet while temporarily chipping away at the Democratic majority in the House.
A congresswoman for Ohio’s Cleveland-area 11th Congressional District since 2008, Fudge is the second black woman to hold the Cabinet post. She has called to expand housing assistance to low-income individuals.
Fudge was confirmed in a bipartisan vote, 66 to 34.
HOUSE DEMOCRATS FACE OBSTACLES GOVERNING WITH SLIM MAJORITY
Ahead of the vote on the House floor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell addressed Wednesday’s expected confirmations of Fudge as Housing secretary and Judge Merrick Garland as attorney general.
“These aren’t the nominees that any Republican would have picked for these jobs, but the nation needs presidents to be able to stand up a team so long as their nominees are qualified and mainstream,” McConnell said.
Some Republicans, though, had reservations about Fudge.
“I’m concerned that Rep. Fudge’s past rhetoric makes clear that she lacks the temperament to collaborate with Congress, particularly across the aisle with Republican members,” Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey said on the House floor on Wednesday. “Congresswoman Fudge has made multiple statements throughout the year attacking and disparaging the integrity of Republicans with whom she has policy disagreements.”
Toomey also said that Fudge lacked experience in housing-related issues, noting that she co-sponsored “very few housing-related bills” and chose to serve on committees unrelated to housing policy.
North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, said that “the housing needs of Americans are too great to appoint someone who is accepting this position as a consolation prize.”
It was a reference to a time that Fudge complained about Democrats’ commitment to racial representation, telling Politico in November about a month before she was nominated: “It’s always, ‘We want to put the black person in Labor or HUD.’”
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With Fudge’s confirmation, Democrats’ narrow House majority becomes even smaller as members join the Biden administration. In addition to Fudge, New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland is expected to be confirmed as Interior secretary. Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond left the House in January to join the Biden administration as a senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, already managing the slimmest majority in 100 years, will temporarily have only a handful of votes as a cushion until special elections can replace Fudge, Haaland, and Richmond in the heavily Democratic districts they’re vacating or have already left. That process could take months.
