Sherrod Campbell Brown was born on November 9, 1952, and has since dedicated his life to public service. He started his political career in 1975 as an Ohio state representative, eventually becoming the 47th secretary of state of Ohio from 1983 to 1991.
Brown's next move was to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served Ohio's 13th congressional district from 1993 to 2007. He then successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006, defeating two-term Republican incumbent Mike DeWine. Brown was reelected in 2012, defeating state treasurer Josh Mandel, and again in 2018, defeating U.S. representative Jim Renacci.
Throughout his Senate tenure, Brown has held various leadership positions. He chaired the Agriculture Subcommittee on Hunger, Nutrition and Family Farms and the Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy, and is also a member of the Committee on Finance, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and Select Committee on Ethics. In 2015, he became the ranking Democratic member on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and in 2021, he took on the role of chair.
As the senior U.S. senator from Ohio, Brown has been a prominent figure in the state's political landscape. He is widely regarded as a liberal, progressive, and populist Democrat, and has been the only Democratic statewide elected official in Ohio, excluding some Democratic-affiliated Ohio Supreme Court justices elected in nonpartisan races, since the retirement of George Voinovich in 2011.
