The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge as Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the first Black woman to lead the department in decades.
The final vote was 66-34. Notable GOP support included Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, who announced this week he is not seeking reelection, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Both of Ohio's Senators – Rob Portman, a Republican, and Sherrod Brown, a Democrat – voted to support Fudge's confirmation, making her the second-ever Black woman to lead HUD and the first woman to lead the department in over 40 years.
“We need to make the dream of homeownership a reality — and the security and wealth creation that comes with it,” Fudge said at her confirmation hearing in January.
Fudge, 68, is a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and was recently elected to a seventh term representing a majority Black district that includes parts of Cleveland and Akron.
In her testimony before the Senate, she said housing issues don't fit a "cookie-cutter mold," and that each state's policies and programs must be adapted differently. Fudge says that 21 million Americans pay more than 30% of their income on housing, and that 1 in 5 renters and 1 in 10 homeowners are behind on payments due to job loss during the pandemic.
"Although Congress provided $25 billion in rental assistance and the CDC extended the eviction moratorium, this is not enough at a time when tens of millions of Americans are behind on rent; almost 3 million homeowners are currently in forbearance; and another 800,000 borrowers are delinquent. Much like COVID19, the housing crisis isn’t isolated by geography. It is the daily reality for tens of millions of our fellow Americans — people in blue states and red states, in cities and small towns," Fudge wrote.
Another task Fudge plans to tackle is to make home ownership a reality for all Americans. Last year, 95% of white Americans owned a home, compared to 50% of Hispanic Americans, 46% Black Americans and 61% Asian Americans, according to the Pew Research Center.
Fudge wrote the gap cannot be broken down until discriminatory housing policies are put to an end, "and ensure that our fair housing rules are doing what they are supposed to do: opening the door for families, especially families of color who have been systematically kept out in the cold across generations, to buy homes and punch their ticket to the middle class.”
Her bipartisan support in her Senate vote was echoed at her confirmation hearing, when Ohio Sen. Rob Portman offered praise for his fellow Buckeye State representative: “I don’t always agree with Marcia on policy, she certainly doesn’t always agree with me, but I can speak to her integrity, her commitment to justice, and the strength of her character.”
Some GOP senators took issue with comments Fudge has made as a congresswoman about Republicans, citing a floor speech Fudge gave last fall where she called Republicans trying to fill the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat “a disgrace to the nation,” and comments she made in a police reform town hall last June where she implied she didn’t believe Republicans “care even a little bit about people of color.”
“Yes, I do listen to my constituents and sometimes I am a little passionate about things. Is my tone pitch perfect all the time? It is not,” Fudge said. “But I do know this that I have the ability and the capacity to work with Republicans and I intend to do just that and that is my commitment to you.