Byron Brown - State Senate

State Senate

In 2000, he competed for the Democratic nomination for the New York State Senate 57th District against incumbent Al Coppola and Samuel A. Herbert. Coppola was endorsed by Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello. Brown won the September 2000 primary by a wide 18% margin. However, Coppola remained on the ballot in the general election on the Conservative Party of New York, Working Families Party and Green Party lines. The Republican Party nominee was the politically inexperienced Harrison R. Woolworth. Although Brown began the race without organized political support, he earned endorsements from many veteran non-Western New York politicians such as H. Carl McCall, Andrew Cuomo, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

When he was sworn in to the State Senate on January 1, 2001, Byron Brown became New York's first African-American State Senator elected outside of New York City. He also became the first minority member of the New York State Senate to represent a majority white district.

During Brown's tenure in the New York State Senate his Democratic Party was in the minority. He was part of the majority that backed New York Governor George Pataki's 2001 plan to build up to three Western New York casinos on Seneca Indian land. The legislation was controversial because it granted slot machine rights to casino operators for the first time in New York State. Both of the previous casinos used video gambling machines with debit cards. Brown supported the casinos as a way to support the local economy. When the casino was completed in 2003, he was on the seven-member commission that was to apportion the state's agreed 18% share of the slot machine revenue, amounting to approximately $40 million.

By spring of 2003, Brown was a rising star in the declining years of the "Harlem Clubhouse", a loose political fraternity of David Dinkins, Charles Rangel, Basil Paterson, Percy Sutton and sometimes H. Carl McCall that had dominated state politics while forging the careers of its members for much of the late 20th century. He was envisioned as a front-runner for the 2006 Democratic nomination as Lieutenant Governor of New York or as Buffalo's first black Mayor. By 2004 it seemed clear that he was eyeing the mayor's office. In the 2004 New York State Senate elections, Republican nominee Al Coppola opposed Brown for the redistricted 60th District and garnered only 23% of the vote.