[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 45 (Wednesday, March 10, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1442-S1444]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Nomination of Marcia Louise Fudge

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise this morning to oppose the 
nomination of Representative Fudge to serve as the Secretary of the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development.
  The confirmation of Cabinet Secretaries is one of the most important 
constitutional functions we have here in the Senate. I think most of my 
colleagues would agree that one of the important considerations is that 
Cabinet officials can be relied on to coordinate and work productively 
with Congress as they implement the policies of the legislation that we 
pass.
  I am concerned that Representative Fudge's past rhetoric makes clear 
that she lacks the temperament to collaborate with Congress, 
particularly across the aisle with Republican Members, and her comments 
cast doubt on whether she even wants to.
  Congresswoman Fudge has made multiple statements throughout the years 
attacking and disparaging the integrity and motives of Republicans with 
whom she has policy disagreements. Policy disagreements are entirely 
understandable. It is reasonable. They happen every day. They are 
expected, especially in a legislative body. But consistently attacking 
the integrity and motives of people with whom you have these 
disagreements is another thing all together.
  In September 2020, during a speech on the House floor, Congresswoman 
Fudge attacked efforts to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on 
the Supreme Court. In her speech, she said, among other insults, that 
Senate Republicans had ``no decency,'' ``no honor,'' ``no integrity.'' 
She went on to say, referring to Republican Senators, that we ``are a 
disgrace to the Nation.''
  In June 2020, during a virtual townhall, Congresswoman Fudge admitted 
believing that Republicans did not care about minorities. She said that 
if Republicans ``want to save face and let this country know that they 
care even a little bit about people of color, which I don't believe 
they do, but if they want to try, I want to listen.''
  Back in a January of 2013 PBS forum with Tavis Smiley, Congresswoman 
Fudge harshly questioned the motives and character of Republicans 
again, this time Republicans who supported cuts to the food stamps 
program.
  Congresswoman Fudge said:

       If we continue to send people to Congress who don't even 
     understand what their job is--who don't understand that 
     government's job is to take care of its people--then we are 
     never going anywhere as a country because we deal with nuts 
     every single day. These people are evil and mean. They care 
     nothing about anybody but themselves. And so if you think you 
     are going to have something bipartisan, you need to think 
     again. It's not happening.

  Overtly partisan attacks on integrity and motive simply have a toxic 
and detrimental impact on the working relationship that ought to be a 
constructive relationship between Members of Congress and members of 
the administration. The Senate should really only confirm officers who 
are willing to cooperate with legislators, especially now when we have 
rapid expansion of many government programs--we just passed a $2 
trillion bill that is probably going to pass the House and be signed by 
the President--and it is especially true for the administrator of HUD.
  In addition to her recent statements impugning the integrity and 
motives of Republicans, Congresswoman Fudge has very little or no 
housing experience. Except for her service as a smalltown mayor, 
Congresswoman Fudge never worked in a capacity where she would be 
familiar with any of HUD's many programs. Even traditionally liberal 
media outlets criticized

[[Page S1443]]

Congresswoman Fudge's nomination for HUD Secretary on the grounds that 
she lacked knowledge and experience in housing policy.
  She did not show an interest in developing housing policy expertise 
as a Member of Congress, introducing or cosponsoring very few housing-
related bills and choosing instead to serve on unrelated committees. I 
acknowledge that not all Cabinet nominees are experts in the policy 
areas that their Agencies cover. That is not unusual. But when they 
don't have that expertise, it is especially important that their 
temperament and their policy views--and their willingness to listen to 
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, especially the other 
side of the aisle, is all the more important.
  Congresswoman Fudge's views as reflected in her response to questions 
for the record are also a matter of concern. When she was asked whether 
HUD should better target its programs so that they are actually helping 
the low-income Americans they are supposed to help, she responded by 
saying, ``The challenge for HUD programs isn't that they aren't 
targeted, it is that funding levels are inadequate to meet the need.''
  The fact is, funding for HUD spending has grown dramatically in 
recent years. That is not even including the $15 billion for COVID 
assistance that the Senate appropriated and worked on, and it is not 
including the $56 billion for housing assistance passed in the December 
omnibus and the reconciliation bill.

  The Congresswoman's answer ignores the fact that HUD programs 
certainly can be better targeted to help those in need. For example, 
families with disqualifying high incomes nevertheless participate in a 
number of HUD-assisted rental programs, and that makes housing 
unavailable for lower income families for whom it is meant. FHA insures 
mortgages for home buyers who could access mortgage credit through 
private capital, also thereby making it less available for people who 
really need it.
  So I worry that Congresswoman Fudge's approach will simply be to ask 
Congress for ever more money without being willing to do the hard work 
of making the reforms that are necessary and working with Republican 
Senators to achieve those reforms. Those reforms are going to be 
necessary if we are going to ensure that HUD programs are improved so 
they actually better serve the low-income Americans they are meant for.
  For these reasons, I cannot support Congresswoman Fudge's nomination.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I appreciate the candor of my colleague 
from Pennsylvania and the work that we do jointly on the Committee on 
Housing and Urban Affairs.
  I ask unanimous consent to finish if I go a bit over and if my 
remarks continue into the next section or, potentially, the vote.
  Have I said that right, Mr. President?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting a dedicated 
and talented public servant and great Ohioan, my Congresswoman for the 
last 12 years, Marcia Fudge, to be our next Secretary of Housing and 
Urban Development. The Presiding Officer served with her in the House 
of Representatives and appreciates her.
  I can think no one better to lead us out of this pandemic and create 
strong communities for the future than Marcia Fudge. When she came 
before the Banking and Housing Committee, Congresswoman Fudge's 
knowledge and passion for service and her commitment to the people who 
make this country work were obvious to all of us, Republicans and 
Democrats alike.
  After a year when Black Americans endured so many painful reminders 
of the yawning gap between the promise of our founding ideals and our 
failure to make that promise real for everyone, it is meaningful that 
our committee's first nomination hearing featured two African-American 
women who will take leading roles in our economic recovery, Marcia 
Fudge and Dr. Cecilia Rouse, who has been confirmed already to be Chair 
of the National Economic Council at the White House. The Senate 
confirmed Dr. Rouse with broad bipartisan support this month.
  It matters on so many levels. It is important for our future that 
little girls, including Black and Brown girls, see themselves in our 
leaders, from the Vice President to Marcia Fudge, to Cecilia Rouse, to 
so many people in this Cabinet, including the new Secretary of the 
Interior from the Presiding Officer's area of the country. It matters 
because of perspectives and life experience these two Black women bring 
to these jobs.
  Congresswoman Fudge will lead an Agency that supports families and 
communities, provides housing and safety to people experiencing 
homelessness, and it helps communities rebuild.
  Today, HUD is grappling with a housing market where millions of 
families find it harder and harder to afford a decent home. New data 
out this week confirms that home prices are soaring around the country 
even while millions are out of work. Imagine that. The cost of housing 
is up, but wages are flat. So many workers have trouble making rent 
every month, with the kind of stress that brings and too often having 
to turn to predatory loans. The dream of home ownership is increasingly 
out of reach for too many families in New Mexico and too many families 
in Ohio.
  None of this started with COVID-19. The affordable housing crisis is 
the product of decades of conscious policy decisions by Wall Street, 
corporations, and too often by government. This pandemic has exposed 
what millions of families in this country already knew: that for far 
too many people, a hard day's work doesn't pay the bills.
  Before the United States ever had its first case of COVID-19, one-
quarter--listen to this--one-quarter of all renters of this country 
spent more than half their income on housing, on rent. If one thing 
happened in their life--their car broke down, their child got sick, 
they had a workplace injury that caused them to miss work for a week--
any of those things and their life turns upside down. HUD should play 
an essential role in fixing that.

  We know that the Black home ownership rate was nearly as low as it 
was in 1968 when Senator Romney's father became Secretary of HUD and 
the work he tried to do in opening housing in 1969. We have made little 
or almost no progress in the Black home ownership rate. I am confident 
that soon-to-be Secretary Fudge will change that. She understands the 
importance of expanding opportunity to every ZIP Code, allowing more 
families to have the peace of mind that brings.
  Here is what I know about ZIP Codes. I am in Congresswoman Fudge's 
district. My wife and I live in ZIP Code 44105 in Cleveland. That ZIP 
Code, in 2007, the first half of that year, had more foreclosures than 
any city in the United States of America. I still see the residue, the 
remains of what has happened because of all those foreclosures.
  Congresswoman Fudge will work to protect our kids from the lead 
poisoning that is still all too common in ZIP Code 44105, to restore 
the promise of fair housing, and to give communities the help and the 
resources they need to thrive.
  She brings to the job critical experience, as Senator Toomey said, 
serving as a mayor in the industrial heartland for the kind of 
community that is either overlooked or outright preyed upon by Wall 
Street and big investors.
  Even though Senator Toomey said that Congresswoman Fudge doesn't have 
the experience in housing, I know up close--I was the Senator during 
her entire time in the House. I represented her in the Senate. We live 
in the same community. We worked on many of the same projects. She was 
helpful on a number of housing issues that I worked on in the Banking, 
Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. She understands our communities.
  She will lift up the voices of all the people left out of our housing 
policy, people who work hard to try to keep a roof over their family's 
head, whose hard work never pays off like it should; people who are 
just trying to make rent or pay the mortgage every month who just don't 
feel like they can keep up. Their wages are flat. Costs go up. Pressure 
builds on them.
  Congresswoman Fudge has the expertise and tenacity to fight back. 
That is why I ask my colleagues to confirm her for Secretary of Housing 
and Urban Development.

[[Page S1444]]

  



                    American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

  Mr. President, in so many ways, we know here that government is 
really about whose side you are on, whom you fight for, what you fight 
against. We know we passed--Senator Cardin is here. He came to the 
Senate the same day I did, and we served in the House together. We both 
recognized what a big deal it was to pass that bill last Saturday. That 
is the biggest thing I have ever done in my career, and I heard other 
Senators say the same thing--shots in people's arms, money in people's 
pockets, kids back in school and workers in jobs.
  But I think it is also important, just for a moment--I will be brief. 
This is a chart of the difference--the biggest issue that Senate 
Republicans and President Trump worked on in this Congress was the GOP 
tax bill, the tax bill in 2017. Senator Cardin and I are on the same 
committee that fought against some of the overreach from Wall Street 
greed in that bill.
  The purple, the blue is what our bill does. Just glance at this for a 
moment. The 20 percent lowest earners, we are increasing--we are 
increasing their after-tax revenue by 20 percent, essentially a 20-
percent raise for people making $20,000 or $30,000 a year. There was no 
help in the Trump tax bill for that.

  Then you work up to the second lowest 20 percent, to the people who 
are modest, working-class families, not quite middle class. They get a 
big bump in their incomes from our bill. Under the Trump plan, they got 
pennies.
  Then you work your way up here to, essentially, the top 1 percent. 
All of the money went to them, essentially, overwhelmingly.
  When you think about what we do with taxes and when you think about 
what this Congress did on Saturday when we put shots in people's arms 
and money in people's pockets and kids back in school, one of the most 
important things we did was to give working-class kids in Denver and in 
Santa Fe and in Albuquerque and in Baltimore and Salisbury, MD, and in 
Mansfield and Cleveland, OH--working-class people and poor kids--a 
chance, a shot, at the American dream.
  This is the biggest thing. Senator Tester and I came to the Senate on 
the same day. This is the biggest thing we have done in years. It will 
matter in people's lives. It is something to celebrate. More 
importantly, it is something we need to carry out and make sure that it 
matters in our constituents' lives.
  I yield the floor
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise today to voice my support for 
the confirmation of my friend and colleague Congresswoman Marcia Fudge 
to be the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. I know that 
she will bring strong leadership to HUD at a time when our Nation needs 
it most.
  Across my State of Maryland and throughout the country, our fellow 
Americans are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Families are 
living in fear of eviction or of missing their next mortgage payment. 
In this time of crisis, we need a leader at HUD who will prioritize 
tackling the ongoing housing crisis spurred by COVID-19. Congresswoman 
Fudge has expressed her determination to do just that. She is a 
dedicated and experienced public servant who has earned a reputation 
for swift action and firm leadership. Her accumulated experience 
spanning a lifetime of service will be invaluable in helping the 
Federal Government mount a robust and coordinated campaign to bring 
those hardest hit back from the brink and ensure an equitable recovery.
  While addressing the urgent needs of renters and homeowners during 
this pandemic, we can't lose sight of the bigger picture. The pandemic 
has exacerbated our country's affordable housing crisis and shone a 
spotlight on how it disproportionately harms communities of color. We 
are seeing the result of decades of discriminatory practices like 
redlining that have targeted minority families and left an enduring 
stain on our communities that won't be easily wiped away. President 
Biden has put forth a bold plan to combat our Nation's housing crisis, 
and as HUD Secretary, Congresswoman Fudge will be charged with 
implementing it, reversing the damage caused by the Trump 
administration, restoring and improving our fair housing protections, 
rebuilding our Nation's supply of affordable housing, and investing in 
our housing infrastructure. She has her work cut out for her.
  There is no doubt in my mind that Congresswoman Fudge will work 
overtime to tackle these challenges head-on. She has spent her career 
fighting on behalf of those most in need and those who have been 
historically barred from stable living and home ownership. She has seen 
these issues up close: first as the mayor of Warrensville Heights, OH, 
and then as a member of the House of Representatives and as chair of 
the Congressional Black Caucus, where she has helped forge compromises 
that brought real results. She is guided by the principle that each of 
us has a responsibility to respect and uplift those most in need. In 
her words, ``there is dignity and there is grace within every woman 
every man and every child in this nation--including those who live on 
the outskirts of hope.'' For Marcia Fudge, service isn't just a job, it 
is a calling. I know that, should she be confirmed, Congresswoman Fudge 
will lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development with 
unwavering commitment. I look forward to partnering with her and the 
Biden administration to provide more Americans with the dignity of 
stable living as we work urgently to strengthen and grow our affordable 
housing programs across Maryland and throughout the country.