[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 79 (Wednesday, May 11, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2442-S2443]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Julia Ruth Gordon

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the nomination of 
Julia Gordon to serve as HUD Assistant Secretary and Commissioner of 
the Federal Housing Administration, or FHA.
  First, some context. Under President Biden, inflation has risen to an 
astounding 40-year high, as we all know and as we are reminded every 
day by prices all around us. But inflation isn't the only thing rising 
under President Biden's watch; so is violent crime. Many cities across 
the country saw a rise in murders last year, continuing a surge in the 
national homicide rate to its highest level in over two decades.
  We are facing a crimewave, and how have our local Democratic leaders 
responded? Well, often, we have radical prosecutors who recommended 
lenient sentences for violent felons. Some are even declining to 
prosecute whole categories of offenses. Some States have adopted so-
called bail reform that is designed to keep offenders from jail 
entirely. And we can't forget the Democrat efforts to defund the 
police.
  Police have been vilified for easily 2 years now, and what has been 
the result? Shootings, assaults, and killings of police officers have 
been on the rise since 2020. Budget cuts have forced veteran police 
officers into retirement. Municipalities are having real trouble 
finding new police recruits and, in many cases, keeping the police they 
currently have on their force.
  We should be doing everything we can to support the police who risk 
their lives to keep us safe.
  Despite these terrible developments, the administration has 
repeatedly nominated individuals with these strong anti-police views. 
Consider some examples. There is Federal district court judge Nusrat 
Choudhury, an ACLU lawyer who falsely claimed that ``cops kill unarmed 
Black men in America every single day.'' When Senator Kennedy 
confronted her 2 weeks ago about this demonstrably false anti-police 
statement, she defended it as ``rhetorical advocacy.'' In addition, 
multiple Biden administration nominees have expressed support for 
defunding the police, including HUD nominee Solomon Greene and Kristen 
Clarke and Vanita Gupta.
  With National Police Week starting this Sunday, what a terrible 
message the Senate is sending to law enforcement by having voted 
yesterday to confirm Lisa Cook for the Federal Reserve. Professor Cook 
publicly called for the firing of a professor--a colleague of hers--
because he dared to criticize the ``defund the police'' movement. She 
actually encouraged donations to the very bail funds that were helping 
criminals get out of jail during the riots after George Floyd was 
killed. She also insulted U.S. police officers by comparing their 
actions to the ``heavy-handed tactics'' of the Russian police.
  Now, to make matters worse, the Senate is being asked to confirm 
Julia Gordon for FHA Commissioner. Ms. Gordon has a history of very 
troubling statements denigrating the police. Among other things, she 
retweeted an inflammatory post that described police officers as ``the 
people killing us.'' That is how she describes the police.
  She also suggested in a letter that she wrote--not a tweet or 
retweet, a letter she wrote--that cases of police violence are not just 
outliers but ``stem from flawed and biased systems that require 
structural change.'' Ms. Gordon's insinuation that the institution of 
policing itself requires structural change because police officers are 
racist--that idea is offensive and, in my view, should disqualify her 
from holding a senior position in the Federal Government, and that view 
is shared by the National Sheriffs' Association, a leading law 
enforcement group which has publicly opposed her nomination.
  Ms. Gordon has also spread caustic rhetoric about her fellow 
Americans residing in Southern States. She retweeted an article that 
asserted that the South ``has rejected nearly everything that's good 
about this country and has become one big nuclear waste site of 
choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment.''
  She has repeatedly disparaged elected Republican officials, including 
our colleagues Senator Graham and Senator Paul and former Vice 
President Pence. Having spread such partisan views, it is hard to 
imagine her working cooperatively with both parties in Congress to help 
all American households.
  Unfortunately, we don't know the full extent of Ms. Gordon's public 
statements because she deleted some of her previously public tweets 
before being nominated. I asked her to try to recover her deleted 
tweets from Twitter because that is possible, but she refused to comply 
with this very reasonable request. It kind of makes you wonder, what 
does she have to hide?
  During the nomination process, Ms. Gordon has tried to walk back her 
past statements, but I think we should focus on what she said before 
she was nominated and needed the Senate's approval.

  I am reminded of something that the poet Maya Angelou said:

       When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first 
     time.

  That is good advice when it comes to nominees, especially Ms. Gordon.
  If Ms. Gordon's anti-police views and hostility toward one of our two 
political parties are not sufficient for some of my colleagues to 
oppose her, I urge them to look at her record on housing policy.
  Despite record home and rental prices, Ms. Gordon advocates for 
throwing more taxpayer money at the housing market despite the fact 
that it is government intervention that has caused the massive 
inflation we have seen or a large part of the massive inflation we have 
seen in the housing market.
  As we prepare to start National Police Week this Sunday, I urge my 
colleagues: Stand up for law enforcement by opposing Julia Gordon.
  I ask President Biden to nominate a less radical nominee, someone who 
supports the police, someone who can garner bipartisan support and who 
won't exacerbate rising housing costs.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.

[[Page S2443]]

  

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to 
complete my remarks before the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to support Julia Gordon, who is 
very, very qualified.
  There is a pattern of Republicans blocking very qualified women in 
this body--very qualified women nominees for all kinds of jobs. We see 
it night after night after night. I could cite lots of examples. They 
will say, ``Well, we support women for jobs that aren't quite as 
important,'' but these really key, extraordinarily important jobs--the 
Federal Reserve, FHFA, the Ex-Im Bank, certainly this job at HUD--we 
know--we can read between the lines. Let's just leave it at that.
  Ms. Gordon made clear that she doesn't support defunding the police. 
People have done all kinds of things on social media on both sides, 
left and right. We can make all our decisions based on something 
somebody retweeted, but it is not the way to run a government. We know 
that.
  I urge my colleagues to support Ms. Gordon, who is highly qualified--
decades of experience--and has broad support from the Mortgage Bankers 
Association, the Manufactured Housing Institute, and Habitat for 
Humanity. Her support is bipartisan. Brian Montgomery, FHA Commissioner 
under George W. Bush and HUD's Deputy Secretary under Donald Trump, 
wrote in support.
  Ms. Gordon served as president of the National Community 
Stabilization Trust, the nonprofit that supports neighborhood 
revitalization and affordable home ownership. Before that, she served 
as the manager of the single-family policy team at the Federal Housing 
Finance Agency, FHFA, working to help families stay in their homes.
  She has devoted her life to housing. She has helped people get an 
opportunity to live decent lives in clean, affordable, safe housing.
  She has led a whole team of policy analysts overseeing all aspects of 
single-family mortgage policy at Fannie and Freddie. Hundreds of 
thousands of homeowners and seniors with FHA loans and reverse 
mortgages are at risk of losing their homes, either because they are 
falling behind or they are exiting forbearance. At this critical time, 
we need her on the job immediately.
  Unfortunately, my colleagues on the Banking, Housing, and Urban 
Affairs Committee thought it important to delay, delay, delay, to slow-
walk, slow-walk, slow-walk, to boycott, boycott, boycott. The Presiding 
Officer today has seen it up close as a member of that committee.
  Her breadth of experience will help her work with a variety of 
stakeholders to design policies across the Office of Housing that will 
strengthen families and communities and help us bring down the cost of 
housing.
  I urge my colleagues to confirm Julia Gordon today. Let's do our 
jobs. Let's focus on the results Americans care about and expect from 
their public servants.