Former Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown launched a nonpartisan organization focused on workers, months after his exit from the Senate.
The new think tank, the Dignity of Work Institute, will function as a nonpartisan organization conducting research about workers in the country. The pro-worker organization aims to shine a light on the challenges workers face in an effort to convince elected officials and the public to pay attention to their needs.
The Dignity of Work Institute will evaluate workers through polls, interviews, and other research.
The institute will be based in Columbus, Ohio. Brown noted that he wanted the think tank to remain in the Midwest, not in the larger coastal cities.
“This isn’t a plaything, this isn’t a launch for higher office,” he said. “I’m serious about this. I always have been on these issues.”
Brown lost his bid for a fourth term in the Senate last year but is rumored to be mulling a run for governor of Ohio or the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections.
His tenure in the Senate focused largely on worker’s rights. Before Brown, 72, lost his reelection campaign to businessman-turned-Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), he consistently won statewide elections as Ohio transformed from a swing state to a solidly Republican state.
“I’ll make a decision later about governor or senator,” he told the New York Times. “I really don’t know if I want to run for office again.”
Brown did, however, say that neither mainstream political party is doing a good job of helping workers.
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“The Democratic Party is the compensate-the-betrayed (party),” he told the Associated Press. “You know, we pass a trade agreement, people lose jobs we give them a little money. The Republicans are the party of compensate-the-winners, tax cuts for rich people.
“Neither party is the make-workers-the-winners party,” Brown said. “And that’s what this is about.”