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, Judiciary, 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.
