President-elect Joe Biden has picked Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge to replace Ben Carson as secretary of Housing and Urban Development, sources tell Politico and the AP. Fudge, who was re-elected to serve a seventh term representing a district that includes parts of Cleveland, is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Agriculture committee. She had lobbied for the position of agriculture secretary, but sources say Biden has chosen Tom Vilsack, who served as agriculture secretary throughout the Obama administration, to return to the job.
Last month, Fudge told Politico that HUD secretary was one of the few Cabinet-level positions that Black policymakers were appointed to. "As this country becomes more and more diverse, we're going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies as those that people like me fit in," she said. "You know, it's always ‘we want to put the Black person in Labor or HUD.'" On Tuesday, however, she told CNN that she would be happy to help Biden in "any way possible." "If I were to be named, certainly it's an honor and a privilege to be asked to be in a President's Cabinet," she said. "It is something that probably in my wildest dreams I never would have thought about." (More Biden administration stories.)
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