Marcia Fudge

Despite the severity of the attack, Fudge described Mason as “kind,” and wrote that “Lance (...) has assured me that something like this will never happen again.” Mason subsequently attacked and killed his (now) ex-wife, in 2018, stabbing her 59 times. After the attack, Fudge released a statement saying she condemned the crimes committed by Mason. She said her support for Mason in 2015 was based on the person she knew for almost 30 years, writing that “the person who committed these crimes is not the Lance Mason familiar to me.”

In 2015, Fudge wrote a letter asking for leniency in the sentencing of her colleague Lance Mason. Mason, an Ohio trial court judge, had punched his wife more than a dozen times, bit her and slammed her head into the dashboard and window of their SUV, breaking her eye socket in front of their two young daughters

During a presentation at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 44th Annual Legislative Conference in September 2014, Fudge said that the CBC would mobilize African American voters in the 2014 midterm elections by underscoring Republican attacks on President Obama, such as claims that he was not born in the United States.

Fudge was the mayor of Warrensville Heights, a middle-class and mostly African American suburb of Cleveland, from January 2000 until November 18, 2008. Her 1999 campaign was her first run for any elected office. She was the town's first female and first African American to hold the mayorship.

After the death of Stephanie Tubbs Jones on August 20, 2008, Fudge was selected as her replacement on the November ballot by a committee of local Democratic leaders. This virtually assured her of election in this heavily Democratic, black-majority district. Fudge won the November 4 general election, defeating Republican Thomas Pekarek with 85 percent of the vote. She was unopposed in a November 18 special election for the balance of Jones' fifth term, and won with less than 9,000 votes cast. She was sworn in on November 19, 2008.

Fudge is a past president of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, serving from 1996 to 2000, and is a co-chair of the sorority's National Social Action Commission. In 2003, she was a member of the Shaker Heights Alumni Association's Hall of Fame Class.

Fudge was born in Cleveland, Ohio. A 1971 graduate of Shaker Heights High School (the same class as Cleveland Mayor Jane L. Campbell), she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business from Ohio State University in 1975. In 1983, she earned a J.D. degree from Cleveland State University Cleveland–Marshall College of Law.

Marcia Louise Fudge (born October 29, 1952) is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Ohio's 11th congressional district since 2008. A member of the Democratic Party, she won the 2008 special election uncontested, succeeding Stephanie Tubbs Jones who died in office. The district includes most areas of Cleveland and Akron. Fudge was Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus in the 113th Congress.