Portman Introduces Nominee for Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Marcia Fudge at Senate Banking Committee Hearing
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Rob Portman introduced Representative Marcia Fudge (D-OH) at the Senate Banking Committee hearing on her nomination to serve as Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Senator Portman and Representative Fudge have worked together on a number of issues for Ohioans, including efforts to combat the housing crisis in Ohio and across the nation, and he supports her confirmation.
A transcript of the introduction can be found below and a video can be found here.
“Thank you, Chairman Toomey, and Chairman-to-be Brown and Senator Crapo and others who might be here from the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to introduce a friend of mine. Before I do, I want to tell her that I think it’s great that she’s at an amazing community college, Tri-C. I hope Dr. Johnson is taking good care of you and I understand that Mrs. Marianne Safford is with you, who is a distinguished public servant in her own way – although not in an elected office – and also happens to be an 89-year-old mother of yours. Is that correct? Well congratulations to you and your family for this nomination.
“And, I’m here just to say that I’m proud that you’re choosing to step up. You’re a friend of mine. We’ve worked together. You do have a distinguished career, and you have worked on housing policy issues throughout your entire public policy career. You graduated from Ohio State and earned a law degree from Cleveland State. You were a Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecutor, you were the first African American and first female mayor of Warrensville Heights, and there you worked on housing issues. I’m told that affordable housing was one of your policy objectives there and you were successful in expanding that.
“Since being elected to the House of Representatives in 2008, succeeding another friend of mine who was a very successful member of Congress who was able to work on both sides of the aisle, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, you have gone on to serve the people of Cleveland and the 11th district with a substantial and impressive work ethic, as I have seen. Certainly compassion for your constituents, many of whom live in communities where there is not good access to housing or jobs, and where poverty is an issue. My experience and that of respected members of the Cleveland community, who I know well, is that you have worked collaboratively to tackle these challenges, working across party lines, including even with your Republican senator now and again, and with the business community to help your constituents.
“Of course, you were also chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. They made you chair because they recognize your leadership capabilities. In our time in Congress together, we’ve worked on a number of things that are bicameral, bipartisan, including teaming up to increase college access for low-income students through our Go to High School, Go to College Act, which incentivizes students to earn college credits in high school through the Pell Grant program. In 2014, after a HUD rule that I thought was a bureaucratic rule that didn’t make much sense, cut off some Cleveland area families from critical housing and social services, your office and my office and you and I worked together to ensure that HUD worked with Cuyahoga County and with City Mission, in particular, in Cleveland so that struggling residents could continue to have access to those vital services. And we were successful in working with HUD on that so I know you’ve had experience working with the HUD bureaucracy.
“During this health care and economic crisis, she has continued to be a leader in fighting for housing security by cosponsoring amendments to the bipartisan CARES Act to ensure that those affected by the pandemic were not unfairly evicted from their homes or foreclosed on due to missed rent or mortgage payments.
“Just as important as her experience is, in my view, is who she is as a person, and I don’t always agree with Marcia on policy, she doesn’t always agree with me. But I can speak to her integrity, her commitment to justice, and strength of her character. I think she’s got a public servant’s heart, I think she’s in it for the right reasons, and again, I am encouraged that she is willing to step up to take on this new responsibility, which is not always easy in these times. As head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, she will have an important job of leading efforts to ensure affordable, quality housing is within reach for all Americans. This is something we all hope for. It’s critical as our nation continues to face a housing crisis compounded by the health care and economic crises caused by COVID-19.
“I noticed this morning there was a new report on the economic growth. Fourth quarter growth was substantial, over four percent. That doesn’t mean that housing became any more affordable. In a way, I think as we begin to come out of this pandemic, we’re going to get back, as we start to grow the economy again -- which all of us hope for and I believe will happen -- into the same issue that we have been in, which is a lack of affordable housing in my state of Ohio and around the country. So I know Representative Fudge shares that concern and will be focused on that. I know she also shares this Committee’s commitment to addressing the eviction crisis we’ve got right now and how you deal with that in the middle of a pandemic. It’s a tough issue, and you want to be sure that landlords, particularly our small landlords around the state of Ohio and elsewhere aren’t left without the resources they need to be able to be successful, but also we need to be sure we’re dealing with the reality of people not being able to pay rent in some cases, and avoiding those evictions that cause so much pain and inefficiency in our system.
“So, Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me the privilege of introducing Representative Fudge. I look forward to hearing from her this morning and then the opportunity to vote for her on the United States Senate floor.”
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