Biden will tap Rep. Marcia Fudge to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development

• President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to a Politico report.
• If confirmed by the Senate, Fudge would become only the second Black woman to manage the department.
• The pick will likely assuage some legislators and activists who were concerned about the level of diversity among Biden's Cabinet picks.

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to a Politico report.

If confirmed by the Senate, Fudge would become only the second Black woman to manage the sprawling department with a $50 billion budget and roughly 8,000 employees. (The first Black woman to lead the agency was Patricia Roberts Harris, who served under former President Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981.) The development comes as Fudge had publicly lobbied to become Biden's Secretary of Agriculture in recent days.

Fudge, who represents an urban district anchored by Cleveland, is a member of the House Agriculture Committee. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus had lobbied for Fudge's candidacy, but former President Barack Obama's agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, has recently risen as a frontrunner in Bidenworld, according to Politico.

This pick could assuage some legislators and activists who were concerned about the level of diversity in Biden's Cabinet.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking Black legislator in Congress and a close Biden ally, recently said that he wanted to see more Black nominees, especially Black women, in the administration.

Fudge would join retired US Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, who Biden has chosen to run the Pentagon, and former diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who the president-elect has nominated for the position of US Ambassador to the United Nations, as Black nominees in the administration. While the position of US Ambassador to the United Nations is not currently a Cabinet-level position, Biden will elevate it back to that status.

Biden has long pledged to form an administration that reflects the diversity of the country.

"I promise you, it'll be the single most diverse Cabinet based on race, color, based on gender, that's ever existed in the United States of America," Biden reiterated during a Dec. 4 news conference.