Cabinet Shuffle: HUD's Donovan to Head Office of Management and Budget
According to officials familiar with the matter, Shaun Donovan will be leaving the secretary position at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a job he has held since the beginning of the Obama Administration, to head the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Julian Castro, the current mayor of San Antonio, Texas is said to be the President's pick to replace Donovan. A nomination is expected some time this week.
Castro, 39, in his third term as Mayor, was keynote speaker at the 2012 Democratic National Convention and is frequently mentioned as a possibility as the party's vice presidential nominee in 2016. His twin brother, Representative Joaquin Castro, represents the 20th Congressional District in Texas. The two Castro brothers were raised by their mother and grandmother in San Antonia and both attended Stanford University and Harvard Law School. Julian Castro is said to have turned down an offer to head the Department of Transportation earlier in President Obama's second term but apparently is willing to take the HUD job and the FBI is rumored to have been vetting him for several weeks.
The appointment of Donovan to OMB is part of a mini-shuffling of the Obama cabinet Donovan is slated to fill the position currently held by Sylvia Mathews Burwell who is expected to be confirmed to replace Kathleen Sebelius who resigned in April as Secretary of Health and Human Services. OMB assists the president in preparing the federal budget and oversees its administration within the executive branch, helping to formulate the administrations spending plans, ensure that agency reports and rules and proposed legislation are consistent with the President's spending plans, and evaluate the effectiveness of executive branch programs.
Before taking over at HUD where he has made ending homelessness especially among veterans a priority Donovan was commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.