Scott Brownback
Samuel Dale "Sam" Brownback (born September 12, 1956) is a United States senator from the state of Kansas.
Biography
Born in Garnett, Kansas and raised in Parker, Kansas, Brownback was state president of Future Farmers of America while in High School. While at Kansas State, he was elected student body president and was a member of Alpha Gamma Rho. He received his J.D. from the University of Kansas in 1982.
He was a broadcaster, teacher and attorney before becoming the Kansas secretary of agriculture in 1986. In 1990, he was called upon to be a White House Fellow for the Class of '90-91, detailed to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. After serving in that capacity for one year at the White House, Brownback returned to Kansas to resume his position as secretary of agriculture and remained in this position until 1993. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1994, but served there for only one term as he decided to enter into the special Senatorial election in November 1996 to replace Bob Dole, who had resigned his Senate seat during his presidential campaign.
Brownback won the primary by defeating former Lieutenant Governor Sheila Frahm, who had been appointed to temporarily fill the seat. He defeated Democrat Jill Docking in the general election and was elected to a full term in the Senate in 1998. He won re-election in the 2004 Senate election with 69% of the vote, easily defeating his Democratic challenger, Lee Jones, a former Washington, D.C. lobbyist who was considered less than viable, especially after losing the Democratic Primary.
Brownback is a member of the Judiciary Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee (where he chairs the Subcommittee on District of Columbia), the Joint Economic Committee, and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Brownback has announced that he would not run for reelection in 2010, in accordance with his support of term limits for members of Congress. He is married to the former Mary Stauffer, heiress to a Topeka newspaper fortune. The couple are the parents of five children (three daughters and two sons; two of the children are adopted).
Views
Brownback is an outspoken social conservative, joining staunch Senate conservatives such as Rick Santorum, and Tom Coburn on issues of social legislation. He opposes gay marriage, , and pornography. He favors teaching intelligent design alongside evolution, is strongly pro-life, having referred to the amount of abortions in the United States since Roe v. Wade as "a holocaust" and believes there is no inherent right to privacy in the Constitution despite expressing disapproval of President Bush's assertions on the legality of the NSA wiretapping program. In accordance with his Roman Catholic beliefs, he has, however, taken a moderate approach to capital punishment. In a speech on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he questioned the current use of the death penalty as potentially incongruent with the notion of a culture of life, and suggesting for its employment in a more limited fashion.
According to an Associated Press report by reporter Laurie Kellman, "Brownback appeared with three children adopted from in vitro fertilization clinics" to coincide with a Senate debate over the Cord Blood Stem Cell Act of 2005 to show his support for the bill and adult stem cell research and to demonstrate his belief that these children and others like them, conceived through in vitro fertilization, may not exist today if as embryos they were used in embryonic stem cell research. According to the Religious Freedom Coalition, children conceived through the in vitro process are known as "snowflake children." The term, as proponents explain, is an extension of the idea that the embryos are "frozen and unique," and in that way are similar to snowflakes. Brownback supports the use of cord blood stem cells for research and treatment, instead of embryonic stem cells and was one of the sponsors of the bill in the Senate. However, liberal Bloomberg columnist Margaret Carlson has referred to the term, in an opinion piece, as the "Right's new rallying cry".
Brownback converted to the Roman Catholic Church in 2002.
Brownback visited refugee camps in Sudan in 2004 and returned to write a resolution labeling the Darfur conflict as genocide, and has been active on attempting to increase U.S. efforts to resolve the situation. He is an endorser of the Genocide Intervention Network, which called him a "champion of Darfur" in its Darfur scorecard, primarily for his early advocacy of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act.
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, he worked with Senator Ted Kennedy on legislation that imposed stricter entry standards at the borders of the United States. Brownback worked with Congressman John Lewis to help win placement of the African American Museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Brownback is also trying to introduce price transparency to the US health care industry, as well as a bill which would require the disclosure of Medicare payment rate information.
In December 2005, Brownback advocated using Washington, DC as a "laboratory" for a flat tax. He stated, "that making D.C. a test case would, with limited potential for negative impact, provide valuable data about the effects of a flat tax that would prove helpful in determining whether it should be applied nationwide." Many residents of the District oppose forcing a system of taxation on them would seem to only further what many believe to be the District's taxation without representation. Indeed, DC mayor Anthony A. Williams said "Leaving aside the merits of this proposal, we continue to resist any efforts on the part of any member of Congress to impose rules and regulations on the people of the District."
On September 27, 2006, Brownback introduced a bill called the Truth in Video Game Rating Act (S.3935), which would regulate the rating system of computer and video games
Political future
Although Brownback has little name recognition outside of Washington, D.C. and his home state of Kansas, he has been working to garner public support since his re-election to the Senate in 2004. Having made visits to early primary and caucus states New Hampshire and Iowa, the senator is taking many of the steps common among future presidential candidates. With his conservative cultural views, he is considered by some to be one of the front-runners of the base of the Republican Party. In an appearance on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Christian Coalition founder and political activist Pat Robertson voiced support of a Brownback presidential bid. In an August 2006 interview, Brownback said that he would announce his decision whether to run for President shortly after the November 2006 elections. On December 4, 2006; Brownback formed an exploratory committee, thus taking the first steps toward candidacy. He has announced his bid to become president as of December 5, 2006 on his website. http://www.brownback.com
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