Sherrod returns to Ohio

As a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown championed the Heath Robinson PACT Act like no one else, working in a bipartisan manner for more than five years before getting it approved. The PACT Act, the most important reform in veterans care in history, provides health care and family survivorship benefits for veterans who developed life-threatening or terminal illnesses from exposure to toxic substances while serving their country. In total, 23 known illnesses from toxic exposures, including exposure to toxic smoke from trash burn pits the U.S. military maintains, are covered under the act. But it almost never happened. A long wait In a last-minute about-face, in August 2022, after agreeing to a final resolution for the bill, some Republican members of the Senate opted out, threatening to permanently derail it. Susan Zeier, of Sandusky — whose son-in-law and PACT Act namesake was Heath Robinson, a veteran who died in 2020 from toxic exposure related to his military service in Afghanistan and Iraq — and other veterans advocates and activists went to Washington to protest. Tim Hauser, a Huron High School graduate who served in the Air Force and also contracted toxic exposure illnesses from his service, was another local activist who joined other veterans to protest the Senate's failure to vote on the act. They and other veterans suffering from illnesses and family members kept a vigil on Capitol Hill, threatening to stay there until the Senate kept the promise to approve the PACT Act. After six days on the Hill, the Republicans opposed to providing full benefits for veterans finally relented. Some veterans had waited more than five decades for the Veterans Administration to acknowledge their toxic exposure illnesses contracted during their wartime service, dating back to the Vietnam War and the use of the exfoliant Agent Orange. Since it was signed into law by President Joe Biden, during a White House ceremony in August 2022, access to VA health care and survivorship benefits has been expanded to more veterans than ever before in the nation's history. Last year alone, the VA resolved over 1 million PACT Act claims, delivered nearly $5 billion in benefits to veterans and their survivors and made concerted efforts to advance military toxic exposures-related research, according to the VA. Nearly 2 million veterans have been served under the PACT Act. Fearless Senator In a 2017 interview published by Dissent Magazine with historian and Georgetown University professor Michael Kazin, Brown is described as "a politician ahead of his time" and "perhaps the most class-conscious Democrat in Washington." Many Ohioans think "people on the coasts look down on them," Brown told Kazin, and he blamed this notion on right-wing spin from Rupert Murdoch-controlled news outlets Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. The working class were the real heroes, according to Brown. His responses to questions about class and race trace back to his childhood. "I learned about politics as the son of a family physician in Mansfield, Ohio, who never made a ton of money because he made house calls that he didn't charge for. I had the privileges of a white person in a small town with a successful father in terms of income and decency," Brown told Kazin. Brown, 72, grew up in Mansfield and earned master's degrees in education and public administration from Ohio State University. He also has a bachelor of arts degree in Russian studies from Yale University. He was first elected to the Ohio legislature in 1975 until his election in 1982 to be Ohio's secretary of state. He served in the U.S. House from 1993 to 2006 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He's married to Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz, a journalist and teacher at Denison University. Taking stands During his Senate career, Brown fought against the privatization of public education, was a strong voice for the Affordable Care Act and introduced legislation to protect coal miners and to fight predatory lending practices. He was an early proponent of LGBTQ+ rights, fought for campaign finance reform and opposed the 2018 Trump administration tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy while having much less impact on the middle class. He voted against the Iraq war and was a consistent opponent of free trade agreements that had no regulatory balance between trading partners, arguing it was unfair to American labor. He was among the strongest advocates for the American steel industry in Washington. After winning his third Senate term in 2018, Brown was considered a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. He briefly considered a run and visited Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina on a "Dignity of Work" tour. He recalled the trip during a segment of "Between the Lines," the Register's public affairs digital talk program. "When we talk about the dignity of work, it's wages, it's benefits, it's work schedules, it's childcare, it's retirement," Brown said. "It's all those things." In March 2019, Brown announced he would not run for president. Later that year, he told the Register if he ever changed his mind about running for president, he promised to announce the decision on "Between the Lines." "I'll never change my mind," he said. Brown lost his U.S. Senate re-election bid in November. Since then, speculation has swirled about whether Brown would be a candidate for governor or for the U.S. Senate seat in 2026 or for president in 2028. Brown told the Associated Press he will return to Ohio this month as "a private citizen" and that people who love the country "fight for the people who make it work every day." Brown did not return a phone call on Wednesday asking him about his future.