Sherrod Brown (D-OH-Senate)i
Sherrod Brown Senator Ohio
Sherrod Brown Biography from Senate.gov
Biography of Sherrod Brown
Since January of 2007, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown – a champion of middle class families in the Senate – has held more than 170 community roundtables across Ohio’s 88 counties with local leaders and business owners, entrepreneurs and educators, and workers and families to find ways to rebuild our economy.
Recently described as “Congress’ leading proponent of American manufacturing,” Brown is working with the Obama Administration on the creation of a national manufacturing policy that would invest in manufacturing innovation, strengthen our component supply chain, connect workers with emerging industries, and align our trade policies to promote our national interests.
He is also working with Ohio’s universities, entrepreneurs, and community leaders to use Ohio’s resources to create new jobs in high-growth industries and make Ohio a national leader in clean energy manufacturing.
And as a long-time advocate for fair trade, Senator Brown is working on trade policies that promote our workers and manufacturers while creating jobs and expanding markets for businesses through an aggressive export promotion strategy.
A tireless advocate for our nation’s middle class families, Sherrod Brown helped pass the historic health care law that will make health insurance more affordable and accessible for American families. This new law will also provide strong consumer protections that will prevent insurers from placing limits on the care patients receive and discriminating against consumers based on age or pre-existing health conditions.
Senator Brown is also working to ensure that Ohioans receive the education and training needed for 21st Century jobs. For the last four years, Senator Brown has also convened a one-of-its-kind Ohio College Presidents Conference in Washington to discuss ways to leverage federal resources to promote higher education and job training in Ohio.
Brown is just the sixth Ohio Senator in history to serve on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee where he works to ensure that Ohio receives its fair share of federal resources and investments. He also serves on the Senate Banking Committee, where he played an instrumental role in passing the historic Wall Street reform law, and is Chairman of its Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection Subcommittee. From his position on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Brown is a staunch supporter of providing comprehensive benefits and body armor to our nation’s service members, even as an early and outspoken opponent of the Iraq War.
Brown is also the first Ohio Senator in 40 years to serve on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, where he has been instrumental in strengthening the farm safety net and addressing childhood hunger.
Prior to serving in the United States Senate, Brown served as a United States Congressman for the 13th District, Ohio’s Secretary of State, as a member of the Ohio General Assembly, and has taught in Ohio’s public schools and at The Ohio State University. An Eagle Scout, Brown is a native of Mansfield, Ohio, where he spent summers on his family’s farm. He is married to Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz. They reside in Avon, Ohio, and have three daughters, a son, both a daughter and son-in-law, and a grandson.
Biography from Friends of Sherrod Brown
Sherrod Brown was born and raised in Mansfield, Ohio and attended the local public schools. He played basketball and baseball in high school and, along with his brothers Bob and Charlie, became an avid Cleveland Indians fan. Active in scouting, he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.
His father was a small-town doctor who made house calls and treated everyone regardless of ability to pay. His mother taught her sons to fight for what was right. Sherrod has never forgotten where he comes from.
Sherrod has earned a reputation as an independent voice for ordinary Ohioans and middle-class families, in the Senate and prior to that when he represented Ohio’s 13th District in the U.S. House. He is a man of principle who has made a career of standing up to special interests in Washington.
In 2006, Ohio voters elected Sherrod to the United States Senate with one of the largest margins over an incumbent in U.S. history. He joined committees that are key to Ohio’s future: Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP); and Veterans’ Affairs. In 2009, he was asked to join the Select Committee on Ethics. And in 2010, he left the HELP committee when he was selected to join the powerful Appropriations Committee, the first Democrat from Ohio to serve on it since the 1890′s.
Since his election, Sherrod has been working on behalf of Ohioans to stop the erosion of jobs in Ohio due to the wrong-headed trade and economic policies of the past.
While many in Washington have simply gone along with corporate-backed free trade deals that have devastated Ohio’s manufacturing sector and sent good-paying American jobs overseas, Sherrod has been a tireless advocate for policies that help workers and their families.
Because he understands that representing people is more important than partisan politics, he has stood up to Presidents of both parties to fight against trade agreements that don’t provide American workers and businesses with a level playing field.
In his first few years in the Senate, he has played a key role in rewriting our nation’s farm and nutrition laws. He authored innovative new programs to encourage local food production and dampen wild swings in the market for farmers – and even saved taxpayers’ money in the process. For his legislative efforts, the Ohio and National Corn Growers Association named him their Legislator of the Year.
On the Banking Committee, he was an early proponent for addressing the crisis in our housing markets that began by devastating neighborhoods throughout Ohio and ended up causing a meltdown throughout the world’s credit markets. He is fighting to ensure that efforts to rebuild the economy focus on Main Street as well as Wall Street, and that the federal government gives as much attention to manufacturing as it does to finance.
Sherrod has been a leader on health care issues throughout his service in Congress. Americans should not live just one illness or pink slip away from bankruptcy because of out-of-control health care costs and insurance policy loopholes — they should have access to the same kind of health insurance that Members of Congress have.
Sherrod doesn’t just talk the talk. As a matter of principle, he refused to accept the congressional health care plan until affordable health insurance was available to Ohioans. And he continues to fight insurance company and pharmaceutical company lobbyists in order to make health care more affordable for seniors, workers, and small businesses.
Prior to serving in Congress, Sherrod served two terms as Ohio’s Secretary of State and, in the early 1990s, he taught democracy and government in Poland as that nation was making the transition from Cold War communism to thriving democracy. He’s also taught in Ohio’s public schools and at the Ohio State University.
Sherrod currently resides in Avon, Ohio with his wife Connie Schultz, a nationally syndicated columnist and winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Sherrod and Connie have three daughters, a son, both a daughter and son-in-law, and a grandson.
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