Pictured is newly confirmed HUD secretary Marcia L. Fudge
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By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief. Coleman trained for 17 years as a reporter with the Call and Post Newspaper and is an investigative and political reporter with a background in legal and scientific reporting. She is also a former 15-year public school biology teacher.
CLEVELAND, Ohio-The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed the nomination of Ohio 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge as secretary of Housing and Urban Development by a vote of 66-34, making her the first Black woman in more than four decades to lead the housing agency.
She will report directly to President Joe Biden as a member of his cabinet.
"It's my honor to serve as secretary of HUD," said Fudge after she was confirmed. "I can't wait to get to work."
Ohio Gov Mike DeWine, per state law, will now set a date for a special election to fill the former congresswoman's seat amid a crowded group of contenders.
Former state Sen. Nina Turner, Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown, who also leads the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, former state Sen. Shirley Smith, former state Rep. John Barnes Jr and former Cleveland city councilman Jeff Johnson are among high profile wannabe's for Fudge's congressional seat that have launched campaigns in an effort to succeed her.
All five of them are Black.
Ohio's largely Black 11th congressional district includes most of Cleveland, a majority Black pocket of Akron, and suburbs of Cuyahoga and Summit counties.
It is a Democratic stronghold, as is Cuyahoga County, the second largest of Ohio's 88 counties.
The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs approved Fudge's nomination last month, setting the stage for Wednesday's confirmation vote by the Senate.
Fudge sat for her hearing by the committee on Jan 28 and faced few obstacles.
A few Republicans on the committee, including Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, the leading Republican on the committee, voted against her confirmation, saying she has been overly critical of Republicans.
During her confirmation hearing she said that her priorities in leading HUD include seeking to eradicate discriminatory housing practices, increasing home-ownership in the Black community across the country, dismantling systemic racial injustice, and narrowing the racial wealth gap.
Also a former national president of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, a prominent Black sorority for progressive women, Fudge, 68, had been a member of Congress for 12 years.
A Warrensville Heights Democrat, she was mayor of Warrensville before joining Congress and the first Black woman to lead the largely Black Cleveland suburb.
A trained lawyer and a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, she won a special election to Congress in 2008, replacing her friend, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who died suddenly of a brain aneurysm, and was reelected each election thereafter, the last time in November of 2020.
The former lawmaker and women's rights advocate endorsed Kamala Harris in her failed bid for the presidency that Biden ultimately won with Harris on his ticket as the Democratic candidate for vice president.
Biden subsequently tapped her for HUD secretary.
She had bipartisan support for the secretary post, including from both of Ohio's U.S. senators, Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, and Rob Portman, a Republican federal lawmaker out of Cincinnati.
Brown lives in Fudge's congressional district and is a Fudge ally, and was a co-chair of the hearing committee.
Brown said that Fudge will lead the HUD agency to "a brighter future."
He said that Fudge will address corporate greed and interference that has plague HUD.
Portman said ahead of the committee hearing that Fudge is more than qualified to lead HUD.
"I don't always agree with Marcia on policy, she certainly does not always agree with me, but I can speak to her integrity, her commitment to justice and the strength of her character," said Portman.
In the past, HUD has had the most Black secretaries in American history with five, including Dr Ben Carson, a Republican who served under former president Donald Trump.
Coming in as president this year, Biden has nominated more women and more Blacks to his original cabinet than his six predecessors, including former president Barack Obama, the nations' first Black president, whom Biden served under as vice president from 2009-2017.
