Bob Brown was the Secretary of State for Montana and the Republican nominee for governor in 2004.
As a young man, Brown was elected to Montana Legislature. Brown spent two years in the State House, 23 in the Senate and his final year in the Legislature as president of the Senate. His political mentors include Jean Turnage, who spent 20 years in the Senate and subsequently 15 as chief justice of the Supreme Court before retiring in 1991.
Brown became Senate education chairman in 1977 and served in that capacity through 1983. He served as chairman of the taxation committee in 1987. He became chairman of the committee on committees, one of the most innocuously named but powerful Senate committees, in 1989. He sat on the judicial committee from 1975 to 1993.
In 2000, Brown ran for secretary of state and won by a 7 percent margin. In 2004, Brown entered the race for governor against Democrat Brian Schweitzer. Although the race was heated, he eventually lost.
He served as a fellow at both the Carol O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West and the Maureen & Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana. He is currently retired and sits on the board of the Montana State Historical Society.
Famous quotes containing the words bob and/or brown:
“English Bob: What I heard was that you fell off your horse, drunk, of course, and that you broke your bloody neck.
Little Bill Daggett: I heard that one myself, Bob. Hell, I even thought I was dead. ‘Til I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska.”
—David Webb Peoples, screenwriter. English Bob (Richard Harris)
“The more we learn of science, the more we see that its wonderful mysteries are all explained by a few simple laws so connected together and so dependent upon each other, that we see the same mind animating them all.”
—Olympia Brown (1835–1900)