Member of the Week : Scott Brown – Senator from Massachusetts

In my profile of Paul Ryan on April 6, 2011, I wrote that his proposed budget, Roadmap for America’s Future of 2010 (H.R. 4529), would play a role in deciding the immediate fortunes of the Republican Party.  Despite House Republicans standing behind the proposal – the measure was passed in the House in April – the foundations of a growing divide amongst prominent Republicans are coming to the surface.  On May 15, 2011, Newt Gingrich became the first leader to distance himself from the plan, stating that he didn’t think “right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering.”  On May 23, 2011, Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts became the latest Republican to openly oppose Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan.  Through an op-ed piece published online by Politico, he expressed reservations regarding Ryan’s proposed transformation of Medicare into a premium support plan over the long term.  A newcomer to Capitol Hill, Scott Brown is not only our Member of the Week but also a possible poster boy for those opposing a key aspect of Ryan’s plan in the Senate.

Scott Brown came from a tumultuous family.  Born in 1959 in Wakefield, Massachusetts, his parents divorced when he was about a year old.  After her divorce, Brown’s mother received welfare benefits.  His childhood was thrown into deeper turmoil when Brown, at the age of 10, experienced sexual abuse from a camp counselor who threatened to kill him if he told anyone.  Moreover, Brown encountered multiple instances of physical abuse from his stepfathers (his mother remarried three times).  During various periods of his childhood, Brown lived with his grandparents and his aunt.  By age 12, Brown began showing signs of a child with no sense of direction.  He began to shoplift and was arrested for stealing record albums when he was 13.  Brought before Judge Samuel Zoll in Salem, Massachusetts, Brown was asked if his siblings would like seeing him play basketball and required him to write a 1,500-word essay about how his siblings would feel if he were sent to jail.  In his 2011 memoir, Against All Odds, Scott Brown credits this event as the turning point in his young life.

Following his run-in with the law, Brown devoted himself to school.  He graduated from Wakefield High School in 1977.  He did well enough to get into Tufts University, where he received a Bachelors of Arts in History cum laude, in addition to playing basketball, acting, and modeling.  After finishing Tufts, Brown attended Boston College and received a Juris Doctorate in 1985.  While in law school, Brown was named Cosmopolitan magazine’s “America’s Sexiest Man.”  This led to the now-infamous photo spread in which Brown posed nude.  He graduated from Boston College in 1985 and started his own real-estate law firm.

Against Paul Ryan's Medicare reform and pants

Scott Brown is an active member of the National Guard.  He joined the Massachusetts Army National Guard when he was 19 and was trained in infantry, quartermaster, and airborne duties.  In 1994, he joined the Judge Advocate General’s Corp (JAG).  He has been active in the Guard for nearly 30 years and has risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel.  Serving as the Army Guard’s head defense attorney in New England, Scott Brown has defended Guard members facing disciplinary actions due to positive drug tests, in addition to providing estate planning and real estate advice to those about deploy to war zones.  Though Brown has never served in Iraq or Afghanistan, he has made it clear that he would be prepared to go.  On May 2, 2011, the New York Times reported that Senator Brown was headed to Afghanistan for training as part of his service in the National Guard.

Scott Brown’s interest in politics can be seen as far back as his childhood.  His father served as a city councilor in Newburyport, Massachusetts for 18 years.  Brown became interested in running for political office in the mid 1960s while accompanying his father on a campaign for state office and holding campaign signs.  He, like so many other Republicans, began his political career in 1992.  Unlike many of his peers, he began his political life as the elected property assessor of Wrentham, Massachusetts.  After three years, he became a Wrentham selectman.  In 1999, Brown successfully ran for the Massachusetts House of Representatives, representing the 9^th Norfolk District for three terms.

Brown once again moved up in political stature in 2004, when he decided to run for state Senate.  He won a special election to replace Democrat Cheryl Jacques and won re-election easily until he left to pursue the U.S. Senate seat he know resides in.  During his 11 years as a state congressman, Brown had a modest record of legislative initiatives, introducing 180 bills, two-thirds of which were repeat proposals.  Only one of his bills became state law, a 2007 law that created a check-off box on state income tax forms for veterans to indicate whether they served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The death of Ted Kennedy in 2009 offered Brown the chance to move into national politics.  Saying that Massachusetts needed an “independent thinker”, Brown announced his run for U.S. Senate on September 12, 2009.  After easily winning the Republican primary, Brown faced Democratic nominee, Attorney General Martha Coakley, and independent Joseph L. Kennedy.  Facing an uphill battle against Coakley – trailing her by 30 points at one point – Brown made a surge in the early weeks of January.  He not only endeared himself to voters as a simple man who drove a GMC truck but also showed his propensity for fundraising.  A week before the general election, Brown raised $1.3 million from over 16,000 donors in a 24-hour period and over the period from January 11-15 he raised over $5 million.  By the time of the January 19, 2010 special election, Brown had become a narrow frontrunner.  Performing well in traditional Republican strongholds and holding his rival’s margins down in many Democratic precincts, Brown won with %52 of the vote.  His electoral victory not only made him Massachusetts’s first GOP senator since 1972 but also resulted in the Democratic Party losing their filibuster-proof 60 seat Senate majority.

His recent clash with Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposals is not surprising.  Tea party members have accused him of being an “unscrupulous political realist.”  Yet, his popularity within Massachusetts has stayed consistent.  On March 30, 2011, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee released a poll confirming that Senator Brown remained the “most popular politician in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with an approval rating of 73%.”  Brown’s self-description as fiscal conservative who is socially conscious has allowed him to vote with the majority of Republicans 95% of the time while still being seen as an “independent voice” in the U.S. Senate by 56% of Massachusetts voters.

Scott Brown’s vocal opposition to the Medicare remedies at the heart of Paul Ryan’s budget symbolizes a caveat in our political system.  Despite being called shameful and accused of not voting for the proposal due to political reasons, Scott Brown is well aware that his Senate seat is secure.  He, like Senator Susan Collins, another Republican who is expected to cast a vote against Ryan’s plan, has the luxury of knowing that voting no against such a diverging plan is not only possible but also beneficial.  This raises the question: How many others in the Republican Party would vote no for Ryan’s budget, only to vote yes in order to continue their political careers?

–Amendment202

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