Washington braces for the return of Sherrod Brown

Por Jasper Goodman and Grace Yarrow — POLITICO – TOP Stories

Senate Democrats are rooting for Sherrod Brown’s comeback. They may not be entirely prepared for what comes next.

Democrats are hopeful that the former Ohio lawmaker can pull off one of the biggest red-state upsets of the midterms next month and rejoin them in the Senate just two years after losing a 2024 reelection race.

It would be a stunning turn for the raspy-voiced Buckeye State populist, who could return to the Senate before the end of the year only to face another grueling reelection fight in 2028 — the consequence of running in a special election to serve out the remainder of Vice President JD Vance’s term.

Brown’s return would force Senate Democrats into an uncomfortable choice: break long-standing party rules to restore his seniority on powerful committees like Banking, Agriculture and Finance or potentially make the former Banking chair start over at the bottom as he prepares for another difficult campaign.

Some Democrats are already suggesting the party should try to find a middle ground.

“Senator Brown — a dear friend — is a very talented and seasoned caucus member, leader and legislator,” Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said in an interview. “Some accommodation that recognizes he would not be a rank freshman would make sense. But that’s distinct from handing him back a leadership role at Banking.”

If Brown wins next month — no safe bet given Ohio’s increasingly Republican leanings in recent elections — his presence would be felt quickly. Because he is running in a special election, he could be sworn in as soon as December, meaning he will rapidly have to begin sketching out a policy agenda ahead of 2028 and staff up a Senate office.

Brown would bring back to Washington a familiar brand of economic populism at a moment when both parties are increasingly taking aim at corporate America. A longtime labor ally who has been a fierce Wall Street critic, Brown spent decades railing against free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement that he said undermined American workers. He could add another protectionist voice to the Senate’s trade debates — though not an ally of President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda. The Ohio Democrat has attacked the president’s tariff regime for driving inflation. “There’s no question that the biggest reason inflation has continued to grow and to get higher and higher is the war and the tariffs,” he told WOSU Public Media this week. “So those are the first two things we should do.”

Brown has also extended his criticism of corporate power on the campaign trail this year to Silicon Valley, accusing tech giants of saddling Ohio with costly data centers. He’s campaigned on plans to cut prescription drug prices and crack down on health insurers and congressional stock trading. “I’m running to stand up for Ohio’s working families. Not Wall Street. Not the drug companies. Not wealthy corporations,” Brown told the Ohio Independent this month. (His campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story.)

Lobbyists are bracing for Brown to put fresh scrutiny on Big Tech, given that he has staked so much of his comeback effort on opposing data centers.

“I would think he’d follow through on the data center issues — try to hold them accountable,” said one former Senate Democratic aide who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the matter.

Brown’s agenda will depend in part on what role he has in the Senate. He served for a decade as the top Democrat on the Banking panel, a spot now held by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). He was also a longtime member of Senate Agriculture, where he would also be the most senior member if his previous service counted. Banking has broad jurisdiction over financial policy, including the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and the banking industry. The Agriculture Committee is critical in shaping the direction of food policy, nutrition programs and the rural economy. It also oversees a financial regulator that has jurisdiction over cryptocurrency and prediction markets — two buzzy new corners of the financial world.

But Senate Democrats’ caucus rules state explicitly that seniority “dates from a Member’s current entry into the Party Conference; that is to say that the seniority of a Member with interrupted service or service in another Party does not date from that Member’s initial entrance into the Senate.”

To give Brown a gavel, Democrats would also have to make an exception regarding his seniority within that particular committee. Precedent wouldn’t be on the Ohio lawmaker’s side. Democrats denied former New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg the ability to retain his seniority after he left the Senate and returned two years later in 2003. And party leaders were gearing up to block former Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana from reclaiming his seniority before he lost a 2016 comeback bid — a decision that would have denied him the ability to leapfrog Brown on Banking at the time.

“It’s never happened because the precedent that it would set would basically put at risk every ranking member/chair of the caucus,” said Dennis Kelleher, a former senior Senate aide and the outgoing CEO of Better Markets, a Wall Street watchdog group.

Still, aides and lobbyists around the Banking and Agriculture committees expect Democrats will be eager to give Brown some sort of perch that will help him in the run-up to 2028.

“If they’re debating gavels, he’s a big reason why they’re debating gavels,” the former Democratic aide said, noting that Democrats likely can’t retake the Senate without Brown winning. “And they need him to win a second time in a presidential election year where the electorate in Ohio is going to look a lot different than the electorate in this midterm with a depressed Republican turnout.”

Some advisers and lobbyists close to Brown are urging him to consider pursuing the Agriculture post, which they contend could allow him to deliver politically valuable policy wins for Ohio’s farmers and rural areas, according to two congressional aides and one other person with knowledge of the conversations who were granted anonymity to discuss them.

“There’s an effort from people in his orbit to get him to look back at Agriculture, and there might be an openness from him to go that direction,” said one of the aides with knowledge of the discussions.

If senators aren’t able to overcome partisan disagreements holding back passage of a sweeping farm and nutrition policy bill this year, farm bill negotiations punted into next year could be a key opportunity for the Agriculture Committee’s next top Democrat to include policies friendly to their state’s agriculture industry.

On the Agriculture panel, Brown would also be able to guide the direction of crypto regulation because of its jurisdiction over the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which polices financial markets. The CFTC is one of the regulators tasked with overseeing the cryptocurrency industry, which has spent more than $80 million to try to defeat Brown over the past two cycles because of his past support for cracking down on digital asset companies.

Meanwhile, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) has already started quietly preparing to take over for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who would step down as ranking member if she wins her Minnesota gubernatorial race.

Bennet, who lost his primary for governor, has started discussing potential staffing plans, policy priorities and held a fundraiser with agriculture groups in recent weeks, according to the three people granted anonymity to share details of the moves.

“There’s a lot to do. I’m really excited about it,” Bennet said in an interview last month.

One possibility if Brown seeks to avoid a clash with Warren or Bennet is for Democrats to hand him a seat on the Appropriations Committee, which could give him leverage to shape federal spending of importance in his state and a potential subcommittee gavel.

So far, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is avoiding any firm commitments. Asked about Brown’s seniority last month, the New York Democrat said in an interview: “Let’s win back the Senate first.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories