Sherrod Brown spent years amassing seniority in the Senate, particularly on the Banking Committee — but that doesn’t mean he’ll retain it, if he succeeds with a comeback bid he’s weighing next year against Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the current top Democrat on Banking, appears to have an edge under Senate Democrats’ current rules, which determine a member’s seniority based on their most recent entry into the caucus, not their first election.
Democrats can always change their rules, or cut a deal on seniority, to entice Brown to run; however, we’re told there’s been no such deal at this point. Brown himself was in line to benefit from these same seniority rules back in 2016, when former Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh was running for his old position. Party leaders said then that Bayh couldn’t cut the line.