Brown is a member of the Republican Party, and faced the Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, in the 2010 special election to succeed U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy. While initially trailing Coakley in polling by a large margin, Brown won the election and in January 2010 became the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts since Edward Brooke in 1972.
Prior to entering the state legislature, he had experience as a town selectman and assessor. He is a practicing attorney, concentrating in real estate law and serving as defense counsel in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the Massachusetts Army National Guard. Brown is a graduate of Wakefield High School (1977), Tufts University (1981), and Boston College Law School (1985).
Brown was born on September 12, 1959 in Kittery, Maine and grew up in Wakefield, Massachusetts. He often spent his summers in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where his father served as a city councilor for 18 years. Brown's father, Claude Bruce Brown, and mother, Judith Ann “Judi” (née Rugg), divorced when he was about a year old. Both his parents have since remarried three times. His father and his grandfather were Republicans. His father has said that young Scott became interested in running for political office in the mid 1960s while accompanying him on a campaign for state office. Scott Brown recalls holding campaign signs for his father.
In June 1982, Brown, then a 22-year-old law student at Boston College, won Cosmopolitan magazine's "America's Sexiest Man" contest. After two weeks on a crash diet of "three cans of tuna a day" and intensive workouts[10] he was featured in the magazine's centerfold, posing nude but strategically positioned so that according to Brown, "You don't see anything". In the accompanying interview, he referred to himself as "a bit of a patriot" and stated that he had political ambitions. The Cosmopolitan appearance and its $1,000 fee helped pay for law school, and began for Brown a "long, lucrative" part-time catalog and print modeling career in New York and Boston during the 1980s.
He successfully ran for the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1998, representing the 9th Norfolk District for three terms. Brown again moved up the ladder of state politics to the state Senate in March 2004 when he won a special election to replace Democrat Cheryl Jacques. Brown was re-elected for a full term in November 2004, and again in November 2006, running without opposition the second time. He won re-election in November 2008, defeating Democratic candidate Sara Orozco by a 59–41 percent margin. Following his re-election, Brown was one of five Republicans in the 40-seat Massachusetts senate. In the Massachusetts Senate, Brown served on committees dealing with consumer protection, professional licensing, education, election laws, public safety, and veterans' affairs.
In February 2007, a controversy arose after Brown's appearance at King Philip Regional High School in Wrentham, Massachusetts as part of a debate on gay marriage. The high school students had launched a Facebook group attack on Brown and had made a derogatory remark about his daughter, Ayla. During his presentation, Brown defended himself and his daughter by directly quoting several vulgar statements they had made and announcing the names of the students who had written the statements. Critics questioned whether Brown should have quoted the profane comments in front of a high school audience.
In late June 2010, Brown was ranked as "the most popular officeholder in Massachusetts" according to a poll conducted by the Boston Globe. 55% of those polled had favorable opinions of Brown nearly five months after his January 19, 2010, special election victory to finish the term of the late Senator Edward Kennedy. 50% of respondents generally approved of how Brown had handled his new position.
On March 30, 2011, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee released a poll showing that Brown remained the "most popular politician in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with an approval rating of 73 percent." Brown's "'re-elect' score was comfortably above 50 percent, which is unusual for a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic state.
October 2011 polling showed Brown's approvals had fallen and he faced a competitive re-election if matched against Democrat Elizabeth Warren.
Brown was sworn in to office on February 4, 2010, by Vice President Joe Biden, in his capacity as President of the Senate, on the floor of the Senate. As a Class I Senator, his term will last until January 3, 2013.
Brown was among the speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., introducing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.[57] Despite his appearance at CPAC, where he alluded to his election as making "big government spenders...[not] feel good at all", Brown refused to rule out a vote for a Democratic "jobs bill" proposal, and has praised both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and senior Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts for indicating their willingness to work with him across party lines.[58] Scott was one of five Republican senators to vote for cloture on the jobs bill. The motion passed in the Senate 62–30 on February 22, 2010. In an up or down vote on the bill itself on February 24, 2010, Brown voted for final passage, helping to pass the bill 70-28.
According to the Washington Post, Brown voted with the majority of Republicans 80% of the time. In the same poll, "56% of Massachusetts voters believed he has kept his promise to be an independent voice in the U.S. Senate.
Brown's views on the 2011 budget cuts have been at odds with some of his fellow Republicans and Tea Party conservatives. His reluctance to go along with some of the more drastic budget cuts has placed him at odds with Glenn Beck and other prominent conservatives. He said he opposed these measures because he believed that they would have a negative impact on low income families and children.
Brown is a 30-year member of the Massachusetts National Guard, in which he currently holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. Brown was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service in organizing the National Guard to quickly support homeland security following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He has also completed Airborne School and been awarded the Meritorious Service Medal.
Brown has received the Public Servant of the Year Award from the United Chamber of Commerce for his leadership in reforming the state's sex offender laws and protecting victims' rights.[91] Brown's family has helped raise funds for such non-profit organizations as Horace Mann Educational Associates (HMEA,Inc.), Wrentham Developmental Center, Charles River Arc, and the Arc of Northern Bristol County, all for the care and support of those with developmental disabilities. He has also been recognized by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) for his work in creating an environment that encourages job growth and expansion in Massachusetts. The Boston Globe selected Brown as the 2010 Bostonian of the Year, citing his "profound impact on national politics in the last year".
Brown is married to former WCVB-TV reporter Gail Huff, whom he met through modeling. They have two daughters, Ayla, an American Idol semi-finalist and a student at Boston College, and Arianna, a competitive equestrian and pre-medical student at Syracuse University.[19] Besides their primary home in Massachusetts, the couple owns a home in Rye, New Hampshire, three rental condos in Boston, and a timeshare on the Caribbean island of Aruba.
Brown and his family are members of the Christian Reformed Church in North America and attend New England Chapel in Franklin, Massachusetts. They also have a relationship with a community of Cistercians, more commonly known as Trappistine, Roman Catholic nuns at Mount St. Mary's Abbey in Wrentham, Massachusetts. The Brown family has raised over $5 million for the order, helping to install solar panels, a wind turbine and a candy manufacturing plant that the order operates.
In October 2011, it was revealed that a section of Brown's website about the lessons learned from his upbringing had been lifted from the website of former Senator Elizabeth Dole. Brown's spokesperson remarked that error was a "staff level oversight.
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