Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) Elected 1992, 6th term
Born:	Nov. 9, 1952, Mansfield
Home:	Lorain
Education:	Yale U., B.A. 1974, OH St. U., M.A. 1979, M.A. 1981
Religion:	Lutheran
Marital Status:	divorced
Elected  Office:	OH House of Reps. 1974-82; OH Secy. of State, 1982-90.
Professional Career:	Prof., OH St. U. at Mansfield, 1979-81.
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Fifty years ago most of the people of metro Cleveland were clustered in the city itself, in tightly packed blocks of houses on the limestone plains above the Cuyahoga River valley with its giant steel mills. Around the city there were some comfortable suburbs, then as you drove past them you found yourself amid miles of farm fields before you got to the nearby industrial cities--Akron, with its Firestone, B.F. Goodrich and Goodyear tire factories, or Lorain, a sort of mini-Cleveland, on Lake Erie with steel mills lining the narrow Black River. In the half-century since, the population of Cleveland has fallen by half and the metro area has spread out over the northern Ohio countryside. The suburbs have spread from Cleveland to Akron without interval; the shoreline from Cleveland to Lorain has been filled in; Medina County, between Lorain and Akron, has been transformed from farmland to suburbia; only the Cuyahoga River valley between Cleveland and Akron has been off limits to development, protected by the creation of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The economy has changed as well. In 1950 Cleveland's economy depended on heavy manufacturing, especially steel, and Akron's on tires. Today most of the steel mills have grown cold or been torn down and the old tire factories have mostly been converted to other use. Akron has developed itself as the "Polymer Center of America," with 80% of the nation's polymer research and a first class polymer engineering program at the University of Akron.

The 13th Congressional District is made up of much of this area in metro Cleveland, but none of the city itself. It includes the west side of Akron and its western suburbs; the lines separating it from the 14th and 17th Districts in Akron's Summit County are absurdly convoluted. It includes the northern part of Lorain County, including Lorain and Elyria just to the south. It includes the southern tier of suburban townships in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County--Strongsville, North Royalton, Broadview Heights--and the northern tier of suburban townships in Medina County, including Brunswick. Fifty years ago this would have been a Republican area, with Democratic precincts in Akron and Lorain. Today, as Clevelanders have spread out far and wide in the metro area, the area is Democratic, though not overwhelmingly so: George W. Bush won 44% of the vote here in 2000.

The congressman from the 13th District is Sherrod Brown, once the boy wonder of Ohio politics and now one of Ohio Democrats' few successful career politicians. He grew up in Mansfield as the son of a doctor, graduated from Yale in 1974 and won a seat in the state House later that year (a state employee, mistaking him for an intern, gave him a dollar to get her a cup of coffee). Since then, he has never stopped running. In 1982 he was elected secretary of state at 30 and worked hard to increase voter registration and turnout. In 1990 he lost that office to Bob Taft, who is now governor. In 1992 Brown ran for the open 13th District House seat. With solid labor support, he campaigned loud and hard against NAFTA and championed universal health care. He won 53%-35%, with 61% in Lorain County.

In the House, Brown has a consistently liberal voting record and has been a politically adept member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. On trade he has been one of the most voluble liberal-labor members from the Great Lakes area attacking NAFTA, GATT, PNTR with China and trade promotion authority; he opposed opening the border to Mexican trucks. But he supported the balanced budget amendment and line-item veto. His position as ranking Democrat on the Health Subcommittee has given him little influence because Republicans have written their health care proposals mostly in party task forces. He has been a critic of pharmaceutical and insurance companies, introducing with Republican Jo Ann Emerson a bill to speed approval of low cost generic drugs. He has urged adoption of a ban on the use of antibiotics on farm animals--including penicillin and tetracycline--which he claims will prevent the transmission of antibiotic resistant bacteria in food. He sponsored a successful bill to support the participation of Taiwan in international organizations. He called for enforcement of laws against importing goods made with slave labor in China. He authored Congress from the Inside, a book that claims that House Democrats lost their majority in 1994 because "we were blamed for everything the voters did not like."

Brown had a serious Republican challenge in 1994 from Lorain County Prosecutor Gregory White, but he survived by 49%-46%. Since then he has won easily. After the 2000 election Brown seemed threatened by redistricting. Ohio lost one House seat in the 2000 Census, and Republicans had majorities in the legislature and held the governorship. The 13th District was then shaped like a dumbbell, with Lorain and Medina Counties connected by a narrow corridor to parts of Portage, Geauga and Trumbull Counties to the east. Brown let it be known that he would run for governor if his district was eliminated. Governor Bob Taft, though he had beaten Brown for secretary of state in 1990 and had good ratings in the polls, asked legislators not to eliminate Brown. By the time the legislators were ready to act, in January 2002, they needed Democratic votes to give it immediate effect in time for the filing deadline. The result was the current 13th District. The bad news for Brown was that he had not represented 56% of his constituents before. The good news for him was that they were much more Democratic than the constituents he lost: the Bush 2000 percentage was lowered from 50% to 44%. He has been mentioned as a candidate for governor in 2006.

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DC Office
2332 RHOB 20515, 202-225-3401; Fax: 202-225-2266; Web site: www.house.gov/sherrodbrown

State Offices
Akron, 330-865-8450; Lorain, 440-245-5350.

Committees

• Energy & Commerce (7th of 26 D): Commerce, Trade & Consumer Protection; Energy & Air Quality; Health (RMM).
• International Relations (7th of 23 D): Asia & the Pacific.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	95	87	100	88	83	38	28	25	4	3	0
2001	95	--	100	100	--	--	15	22	4	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	95%	--	0%		88%	--	10%
Social	83%	--	11%		74%	--	19%
Foreign	91%	--	8%		87%	--	10%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights N 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Ban ANWR Development Y 5. Faith-Based Charities N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  8. Arm Commercial Pilots Y  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Sherrod Brown (D)	123,025	69%	$606,396
	Ed Oliveros (R)	55,357	31%
2002 primary	Sherrod Brown (D)	unopposed
2000 general	Sherrod Brown (D)	170,058	65%	$789,866
	Rick Jeric (R)	84,295	32%	$28,276
	Other	8,945	3%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (62%); 1996 (60%); 1994 (49%); 1992 (53%)

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	133,458	53%
	Bush (R)	110,812	44%
	Other	9,559	4%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Thirteenth District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D + 4
• District Size: 537 square miles
• Population in 2000: 630,730; 92.7% urban; 7.3% rural
• Median Household Income: $44,524; 9.4% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 26.3% blue collar; 59.2% white collar; 14.4% gray collar; 14.0% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 81.5% White, 12.1% Black, 1.2% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.3% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 3.5% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 17.3% German, 10.1% Irish, 6.7% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.