Sam Brownback has spent his life in the service of others. He was born in
Parker, Kansas and raised on a farm where his mother and father still
live. He was a leader in high school, in Future Farmers of America as
state president, as student body president at Kansas State University and
president of his class at University of Kansas Law School.
Sam served as a White House Fellow in the first Bush Administration and
was the youngest Secretary of Agriculture in Kansas history. When he was
38, he was elected to the House of Representatives with the Republican
Revolution in 1994. In 1996, he was elected to the U.S. Senate seat held
by Bob Dole.
In the U.S. Senate, Sam serves on the Appropriations and Joint
Economic Committees. He is the Ranking Member on the Joint Economic
Committee, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations
Subcommittee, as well as the subcommittee responsible for the
Constitution. He also serves in the Helsinki Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe, co-chairs the Senate Cancer Coalition and the Human
Rights Caucus, chairs the Senate Values Action Team, and is a founding
member of the Senate Fiscal Watch Team.
Sam has earned a well-deserved reputation for expertise and genuine
concern in a wide range of issue areas. He is currently focused on
defending and promoting traditional marriage, building market- and
consumer-based solutions to health care reform, and meaningful tax reform
including an optional flat tax. He has worked hard to ensure that we
confirm judges who will interpret the law and not legislate from the
bench, to create a BRAC-like commission to review and terminate failed or
completed federal programs, to protect and renew our American culture, and
to defend human life. He is actively engaged in re-opening the U.S. beef
trade in Asia, stopping genocide in Darfur, incentivizing drug companies
to find cures to neglected diseases throughout the world, and spreading
democracy and human rights in Iran and North Korea.
His colleagues say he is one of the most sincere people in Congress, and
even those who don't agree with him never doubt his conviction and
appreciate the respectful way he debates even the most contentious of
issues. The compassion with which he approaches the full range of issues
is exactly what we need in our leaders.
The Economist called Sam "The Wilberforce Republican." And the New York
Times declared that he is "one of the most conservative, religious,
fascinating -- and, in many ways, admirable -- politicians in America
today."
Over the years, Sam has been a radio broadcaster, attorney, teacher,
administrator, congressman and senator. Senator Brownback and his wife
Mary have five children.
