Beleaguered HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson Resigns
March 31st, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Here’s yet ANOTHER Bush administration bigwig who is resigning to — no joke — spend more time with his family. But there is a teensie-weensie bit more to it than that:
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson resigned today amid a criminal investigation into favoritism in awarding HUD contracts that critics said was blunting the agency’s effectiveness in dealing with the subprime mortgage mess.
“There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters,” Jackson said in a brief statement. “Now is such a time for me.”
Noting that he had, during his tenure, “improved housing opportunities for all Americans,” the secretary said “he took great pride” in increased homeownership by minority Americans.
It’s fascinating how many of these officials that get into hot water suddenly discover their family obligations and step down.
Predictably, Democrats welcomed the move while President George Bush in effect said Jackson did a heck of a job:
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said that while Jackson’s resignation is “appropriate, it does nothing to address the Bush administration’s wait-and-don’t-see posture to our nation’s housing crisis.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said HUD will be called on to work with Congress on assisting refinancing for borrowers faced with imminent foreclosure.
The ethical allegations against Jackson “meant that the Bush administration’s ineffective housing policies were being burdened by an even more ineffective HUD Secretary,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said after Jackson’s announcement.
President Bush called Jackson “a strong leader and a good man.” Ties between the two men go back to the 1980s when they lived in the same Dallas neighborhood. It was Jackson’s personal ties to Bush that brought him to Washington, where he displayed a forceful personal style at HUD for seven years, first as the agency’s No. 2 official and since 2004 in the top slot.
Still, while local New York Democrats cheered his departure, New York Senator Chuck Schumer praised Jackson’s work on affordable housing. Read this.
Even so, he was working under a cloud. Bloomberg gives the background:
His departure, without an immediate replacement, comes as the Bush administration is working on measures to ease the housing crisis. Jackson was an advocate for an industry-led program to encourage lenders to voluntarily refinance troubled loans rather than using federal funds to tackle the mortgage crisis.
Jackson came under fire in the U.S. Senate after refusing to answer questions about accusations he improperly directed his staff to steer federal housing contracts to political allies. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd asked for the housing secretary’s resignation earlier this month, calling Jackson “unfit” to run the agency during a national housing crisis.
Dodd made the statement in a March 21 letter to President George W. Bush that was also signed by Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat.
The Justice Department is investigating whether Jackson was truthful when he told the agency’s inspector general and Congress that he didn’t direct federal housing contracts to friends, a person familiar with the probe said. The National Journal has reported that the case includes Jackson’s ties to a golfing partner who received more than $485,000 to manage construction work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Perhaps the Republicans can run on this resignation and others.
With all the bigwigs who’ve quit over the years to suddenly spend time with their families, they can point to all of them and boast that this shows that GOP is indeed the party of family values..
This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Bush Administration, Republicans, Democrats. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
