The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced a publicity campaign designed to trumpet what it describes as the “key milestones and accomplishments since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration as well as priorities for 2024.”
The campaign, dubbed the “HUD Cares Tour,” was described in a HUD press release as a “multi-city tour” where the department will conduct “a variety of stakeholder engagements.” HUD did not provide a schedule for the tour, nor did it state which officials would participate in this endeavor.
“Over the last three years, we have made great strides to improve the state of housing in this country and I am incredibly proud of the work we’ve done thus far,” said HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, who is resigning her position on March 22. “When I stepped into this role three years ago, I made it my mission to make sure that the work we did wasn’t just impactful but made a real difference in people’s lives. I care very deeply about the communities we’ve served, and I hope that the work we’ve done at HUD reflects that as well.”
The timing of the “HUD Cares Tour” may not be a coincidence, as President Biden only recently began to acknowledge the challenges facing the housing market. As part of his re-election campaign, the president has repeatedly sought to blame the problems within housing on others – he cited unnamed “big landlords … who break antitrust laws by price-fixing and driving up rents” during his State of the Union speech, and earlier this week in a campaign speech he suggested realtors were responsible for driving up home prices.
But having HUD officials talking up the administration’s “key milestones and accomplishments” could run afoul of the Hatch Act, a federal law designed to prevent civil servants within the Executive Branch from engaging in political activities. Fudge previously violated the Hatch Act in March 2021 when she signaled her support for Democratic candidates in the 2022 U.S. Senate election for Ohio. Fudge received a warning from the Office of Special Counsel that if “she engages in prohibited political activity we will consider such activity to be a willful and knowing violation of the law that could result in further action.”
