President-elect Joe Biden has selected Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Fudge, who has served in the House since 2008, represents most of the majority-Black areas of Cleveland as well as part of Akron. If nominated, she would be one of just a few House members to leave for the Biden administration as Democrats fight to hold on to the small majority they still have in the next Congress.
Majority Whip James Clyburn and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus had been publicly campaigning for Biden to choose Fudge to be his Agriculture secretary.
“If I were to be, certainly it’s an honor and a privilege to be asked to be in the president’s cabinet,” Fudge said Tuesday. “It is something that probably in my wildest dreams I never would have thought about.”
Fudge has been a fierce critic of Trump administration efforts to end food stamps for millions of Americans by tightening eligibility rules. She also fought the Republican president’s pressure to roll back Obama administration requirements to improve nutritional standards for school lunches.
Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who served as Agriculture secretary during all eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, is a top candidate to get the job again under Biden, people familiar with the process said Monday.
Clyburn said Tuesday that he expected to see Fudge end up with a Biden nomination. “Look for her to be in the cabinet. It may not be at agriculture but she will be nominated to be in the cabinet,” he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
The Biden transition declined to comment.
The congresswoman represents a district where nearly a quarter of householdswere on food stamps in 2018.
