Howard Morton Metzenbaum (June 4, 1917 – March 12, 2008) was an American politician and businessman who served for almost 20 years as a Democratic member of the U.S. Senate from Ohio (1974, 1976–1995).

Metzenbaum was born June 4, 1917, in Cleveland, Ohio, to a poor family, the son of Anna (née Klafter) and Charles I.

[2] He attended Glenville High School, where he ran track, while also working odd jobs after hours.

After initially facing discrimination due to his Jewish heritage,[citation needed] he found acceptance representing large labor unions, first with the Communications Workers of America and later the International Association of Machinists.

[4] Metzenbaum became independently wealthy through investments, particularly in real estate near what became the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, which Metzenbaum and his partner, Alva "Ted" Bonda, correctly envisioned would make for extremely profitable, 24-hour, well-lit parking lots.

[6] In the early 1970s, Metzenbaum also co-owned the Sun Newspapers chain of weeklies which covered the Cleveland suburbs, a venture undertaken after his first senatorial election defeat.

He beat astronaut John Glenn in the Democratic primary by a close 46%-45% margin, but narrowly lost to Robert Taft Jr. in the general election.

In the primary, Metzenbaum contrasted his strong business background with Glenn's military and astronaut credentials, saying his opponent had "never worked for a living."

He told Metzenbaum to go to a veterans' hospital and "look those men with mangled bodies in the eyes and tell them they didn't hold a job.

Metzenbaum became well known for his service on the Senate Judiciary Committee, particularly because of his efforts to keep stringent antitrust laws and his pro-choice stance on abortion.

An allegation was that the G. D. Searle & Company was trying to bring aspartame to market and get it approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by submitting false data.

In 1985, the U.S. Senate heard testimony relating to an amendment by Metzenbaum that would require the quantity of aspartame in a product to be labeled.

[22] When the National Republican Senatorial Committee suggested in 1987 that he had "Communist sympathies", Chairman Rudy Boschwitz apologized for the smear.

These included the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which required warning periods for large factory closures;[24][25] the Brady Law, which established a waiting period for handgun purchases;[5][26] and the Howard M. Metzenbaum Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 (MEPA) (U.S. Public Law 103-82), which prohibits federally subsidized adoption agencies from delaying or denying child placement on grounds of race or ethnicity.

[27] On May 27, 1998, the Old Federal Building and Post Office in downtown Cleveland was renamed the Howard M. Metzenbaum United States Courthouse in his honor.