Sherrod Campbell Brown (/ˈʃɛrəd/ SHERR-əd; born November 9, 1952) is an American politician who served from 2007 to 2025 as a United States senator from Ohio.

[10][failed verification] During his senior year in college, Brown was recruited by a local Democratic leader to run for Ohio's state house.

As ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Health subcommittee, Brown successfully advocated for increased funding to fight tuberculosis.

[16] In August 2005, Brown announced he would not run for the United States Senate seat held by two-term Republican incumbent Mike DeWine,[17] but in October he reconsidered his decision.

[19] In April 2006, Brown, along with John Conyers, brought an action against George W. Bush and others, alleging violations of the Constitution in the passage of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

[25] The Washington Post reported that no candidate running for reelection (save Barack Obama) faced more opposition from outside groups in 2012 than Brown did.

[29] In 2024, Brown ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and in the general election faced the Republican nominee, businessman Bernie Moreno.

[38] Brown pushed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2021 to establish the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence in Ohio.

"[42] Brown has expressed interest in being a Democratic candidate for the 2026 United States Senate election in Ohio, for the seat formerly occupied by Vice President JD Vance.

[44] One of Bernie Sanders's closest allies in the U.S. Senate, Brown nevertheless endorsed Hillary Clinton and campaigned for her in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary in Ohio.

[48] After winning his third Senate term in the 2018 election, he was considered a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and began exploring a run in January 2019.

[54] In a 2017 issue of Dissent, Michael Kazin introduced an interview with Brown by praising him as "a politician ahead of his time" and "perhaps the most class-conscious Democrat in Washington."

Brown told Kazin that many Ohioans think "people on the coasts look down on them" and blamed this notion on Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.

[66][67] Brown was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill to amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amount needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis.

It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health insurance.

[68] In July 2023, Brown was one of a group of Democratic senators to introduce the Stop Predatory Investing Act to ban corporate investors that buy up more than 50 single-family homes from deducting interest or depreciation on those properties.

[76][77] Brown and Representative Tim Ryan introduced legislation in 2015 that would give military veterans priority in scheduling classes in colleges, universities, and other post-secondary education programs.

[78] After the leak of the Panama Papers in 2016, Brown and Elizabeth Warren urged the Treasury Department to investigate whether U.S. citizens were involved in possible tax avoidance and misconduct associated with the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.

In April of that year, he initiated an inquiry into "the implosion of Archegos Capital", an investment firm that lost billions of dollars amid accusations of fraud and insider trading.

[84] Some of the corporate PAC money Brown received came from health insurance and pharmaceutical companies that the state of Ohio sued for illegally driving up drug prices.

[90] In his book Myths of Free Trade, Brown writes, "an unregulated global economy is a threat to all of us"[91] and recommends measures that would allow for emergency tariffs, protect Buy America laws, including those that give preference to minority and women-owned businesses, and hold foreign producers to American labor and environmental standards.

[92] Brown co-authored and sponsored a bill that would officially declare China a currency manipulator and require the Department of Commerce to impose countervailing duties on Chinese imports.

[98] Pressure from Brown and other congressional Democrats in 2023 led the Biden administration to abandon plans for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework's trade component.

[106][107][108][109] Weeks after the 2014 Hong Kong class boycott campaign and Umbrella Movement broke out, demanding genuine universal suffrage among other goals, Brown (the chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China), co-chair Chris Smith, U.S.

[115] He voted against a controversial Israel Anti-Boycott Act initiated by Republicans in 2019[116] that would allow states to prohibit government agencies from contracting with organizations involved in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

"[122] He and 16 other members of Congress urged that year the U.S. to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in western China's Xinjiang region.

[123] After Juan Guaidó was declared interim President of Venezuela by the National Assembly in 2019, Brown said the U.S. should "work with our allies and use economic, political and diplomatic leverage to help bring about free and fair elections, limit escalating tension, and ensure the safety of Americans on the ground", and called the Trump administration's suggestions of military intervention "reckless and irresponsible".

The legislation was meant to correct a Federal Railroad Administration rollback of a proposed rule intended to establish safety standards.

[138] Recchie and Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz later became friends and filmed an ad together for Brown's 2006 Senate campaign.

[150] In August 2023, Brown corrected several years of Senate financial disclosure forms that had previously omitted his wife's pension money.