E-mail a friendSen. Sherrod Brown
airdate February 27, 2008
Sherrod Brown was elected to the U.S. Senate in '06, after serving seven terms in the House of Representatives. He also previously served as Ohio secretary of state and was one of the youngest state representatives in Ohio history. Prior to his public service, the Yale grad worked with Ohio State University's Mershon Center, training educators in Poland about democracy, after the Communist government fell. Brown's committee assignments include Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and Veterans' Affairs.
Sen. Sherrod Brown
Tavis: Sherrod Brown is serving his first term in the U.S. Senate from Ohio, the state that could be the deciding factor in the race for the Democratic nomination. He also sits on the Senate Banking Committee, which tomorrow hears from fed chairman Ben Bernanke on the continuing mortgage crisis in the U.S. He joins us tonight, as you can see, from Washington. Senator Brown, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Sen. Sherrod Brown: My pleasure, thanks, Tavis.
Tavis: I started with a joke earlier at the top of the show about what it must feel like these days to be a Democratic superdelegate, so you heard my joke, what does it feel like for you to be a superdelegate right about now?
Brown: Well, it's - the great part about it is that it gives me an ability to talk about issues that matter to Ohio in terms of foreclosure, in terms of jobs, in terms of education, and helping to get both candidates a little bit more focused on Ohio issues and how working Ohioans are not doing well in a lot of ways because of a federal government that's betrayed them in too many cases.
Tavis: You have decided, at this point at least, if my facts are correct, not to endorse, yes?
Brown: Yeah, I am not endorsing.
Tavis: You will endorse at some point?
Brown: Well, at some point. I don't see the superdelegates - there's not going to be this meeting in a back room somewhere and changing and taking away what the voters have decided. I think that we'll see what happens in the next week in Texas and Ohio and Rhode Island and Vermont, but I don't see the superdelegates wanting to turn over what the voters had said. It's not going to be any smoke-filled rooms or anything like that.
Tavis: If the race, though, once we get to Denver, is that tight, it's not even a question then of turning it over, it's a matter of what role the superdelegates ought to play at that point if the race is, in fact, that close by then.
Brown: Well, yeah, it is, but I don't really expect it to be. I think that we're going to see a candidate with momentum - either Barack continues his winning ways in the last 11 or so or Hillary wins these states coming up and then builds a winning streak with momentum, and I think that will tell us a lot about the state of the Democratic Party and where people want to go.
Tavis: Last night in Ohio they completed the 20th presidential debate they've had of the season. I moderated one of those, so I know what that experience is like and I'm glad I did it and got it out of the way. But that said, give me your sense now, 20 debates later and at this point in the process, what you have made of the race between the two of them down the stretch.
Brown: I think it's terrific. I look at people, I see people who have never been involved in politics, especially young people, a good many African Americans, a good many working White Americans that have decided I'm going to get involved this year that hadn't before, and the inspiring - really the history-making of both candidates I think is a big reason, and I think both of them provide a lot of hope too, and a great desire to change the direction of this country.
You're seeing Hillary and Barack, who aren't very different on issues here, and then 180 degrees different on the other side you're seeing Senator McCain, who is really running for a third Bush term in terms of continuing this war, in terms of tax cuts for the rich, in terms of ignoring everything from community development block grants to funding for community colleges to everything in between.
And the voters are going to have such a stark choice. I stood up last night, my wife and I and my daughters were there, and when we left we just turned to each other and said this was just great, because we have two really good candidates that really are gutsy and smart, and I thought the debate last night just showed the quality of both of them.
Tavis: Let me ask you whether or not you, as the senator from the Buckeye State, revel in the role that Ohio is playing and can play, and whether you revel in it or not, what kinds of issues do you think are going to resonate with voters in Ohio where this Democratic primary is concerned?
Brown: Well, I think that voters - I don't know that I revel in it. I see it as an opportunity, not just to get issues in front of either Barack or Hillary or John McCain, for that matter, now, but as an opportunity to get them to pay attention and then come January really work on those issues in the state.
In my state, a whole lot of people have worked hard, played by the rules, and don't have much to show for it. Too many people have lost their homes - 200 foreclosures every single day in Ohio. Too many kids can't afford to go to community college and aren't able to get through school and end up with huge student loans, huge debt, but at the same time don't get their degree.
We're not seeing people have the opportunity to get into the middle class in Ohio the way they did 10 years ago, and that's the challenge and that's where both Barack and Hillary, I think, have risen to the occasion. John McCain, it's the same business as usual, but Hillary and Barack really are talking about the right things and changing the direction of the state and this country.
Tavis: Anybody who's ever campaigned in Ohio, there's one thing Barack and Hillary do, in fact, agree on, which is this: we talk about Ohio, the Buckeye State, as a decision-making place, and yet you well know that that state is the most unorthodox state to campaign in. There are so many pockets of different kinds of voters.
Ohio - not that any state is a monolith, but Ohio certainly is not. How do you campaign effectively in a state that has so many different pockets of kinds of voters that you have to appeal to in different ways?
Brown: Yeah, they do, and the "Plain Dealer," the largest paper in the state, wrote a series of stories called "The Five Ohios," because there are sort of five different regional blocs, demographic blocs, whatever. But the state has so many of the same concerns. We have job loss, we have a declining middle class, we don't have the opportunities for young people, White and Black, that we used to have, particularly - Blacks have never had the opportunity in Ohio or anywhere else that they should have.
But clearly, we've not done as well as we used to or should be doing in that way, and that's statewide. I mean, there are certainly pockets of great successes in Ohio in affluence and opportunity, but as a state we're in a little bit of trouble and I think the candidates that come up with the big ideas on changing our economy, on trade, on alternative energy - and we have some of the greatest entrepreneurial spirit, history in this state, and a good work force, well-trained work force.
We've just got to put it together, and we've sort of suffered from not particularly good political leadership in the last generation in Ohio. And I think all of that is beginning to change and I want to be part of that with Barack or Hillary come November, and I think we'll see change.
Tavis: A lot's been said about the ways of Washington and Hillary's talked about experience and Barack has talked about change, and they both, though, have talked about the way - for that matter, so has McCain - his career's been talked about a lot during his career. That is to say, changing the way Washington works. As a freshman senator, as a first-term senator, what's your sense at this point in your first term of how Washington works and what the challenges are to change it going forward?
Brown: Well, I was in the House for 14 years and I was elected to the Senate in large part because people in my state think the federal government's betrayed them. They think the George Bush crowd is - they've allowed the drug companies to write the Medicare laws, they've allowed the energy companies to dictate - oil companies to dictate energy policy, they've allowed these large corporations to write trade law that has caused a huge outsourcing of jobs that have created a middle class - inner city in the Black community and created a middle class in rural White southeastern Ohio and places all over the state.
And I think that it's a question of putting government on the side of the middle class. Which side are you on in this? Are you going to finally side with the great majority of the public, or are you going to continue a government that sides with the drug industry and the oil industry and the richest people in our country? And that's what this general election's going to be about, and that's why I think we're going to see the kind of change that we ought to have.
Tavis: I mentioned earlier, before I let you go, that the fed chairman, Mr. Bernanke, testifies before your committee tomorrow; you're on the banking committee. What do you expect those hearings to yield, and what do you want to say to him or ask him?
Brown: Well, I like Bernanke, but he and the whole Bush administration have been slow to come to the table on the whole issue of predatory lending and what's happened with foreclosures. As I mentioned, Tavis, we have 200 a day in Ohio. A year ago, Senator Casey and Schumer and I and others began trying to push the fed and push the Bush administration on everything from counseling money to keep people out of foreclosure to helping with FHA reform and everything in between - bankruptcy law and all that.
And I want to hear the fed be a lot more - Bernanke's done pretty well, but he needs to be way more bold than he's been. Secretary Paulson and President Bush need to understand this isn't a problem - foreclosure's not a problem just because it's finally spreading to Wall Street, because what it's done on Main Street, and it's inner city, it's inner ring suburb, it's outer ring suburb, and it's rural Ohio - it's everywhere, and there's too many people that have lost their American dream.
These aren't wild speculators that are trying to put a lot of money in their pocket. They're middle class and working class and poor Ohioans that finally were able to buy a home, and it's been pulled out from under them because of some pretty shady dealings, and there are a whole lot of people that are pointing fingers at everybody else, but haven't really stepped up to the plate the way they should.
Brown: For Ohioans and for that matter for Americans across the country dealing with this housing crisis, I hear your critique of what they have not done. What needs to be done, number one, and are you hopeful that it will be, and for that matter, is this stimulus package enough?
Brown: Well, the stimulus package, of course it's not enough. I mean, the stimulus package should be putting money into community development block grants to help Mayor Jackson in Cleveland and Mayor Coleman in Columbus and other places fix up some of these houses that have been foreclosed on so people can live in them and the neighborhoods won't get more blighted where these foreclosures have happened.
We need to put more money into the counseling programs, we need to fix the bankruptcy law so that you get help in bankruptcy if you have a vacation home in Florida but you don't in your prime home in east Cleveland or Garfield Heights or Bexley, Ohio?
All across the board, we need to be way more aggressive and assertive on this whole bank crisis. It's just hurt so many families that have worked hard and played by the rules. I know a whole lot of people this has happened to; I see what happens in a neighborhood. If it happens to your house and I live next door or I live 10 houses down the street, the value of my home goes down.
And there are literally hundreds of thousands of families in Ohio who have seen their own property - the value of their property go down. At the same time, they have to lay off police and fire because of what it's done to the cities. And the Bush administration's been sort of just sitting there, twiddling their thumbs.
Tavis: He is on the Senate Banking Committee. We will see tomorrow what Mr. Bernanke has to say to that committee about this housing crisis that so many people are still suffering under, but more importantly, he is a senator from the Buckeye State of Ohio. We know a showdown coming there soon, certainly on the Democratic side. Senator Sherrod Brown, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Brown: Thanks, Tavis, what you're doing state of the Black union, and we all appreciate that.
Tavis: Thank you for coming on, I'm glad to have you here.
Brown: All right, thanks.
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