By Gabrielle Gurley
US Sen. Scott Brown continues to gain national prominence as Washington’s new go-to guy. All it takes these days is a letter from Brown to signal the way the legislative winds are blowing on Capitol Hill. So says Washington Post reporter Perry Bacon Jr in a Friday profile of the freshman senator’s ballooning influence on inside the Beltway politics and policy.
Of the senator’s role in the financial regulatory reform legislation that the US Senate passed earlier this week, Bacon says, “…as the financial overhaul bill moved through Congress, Brown navigated the process as if he were a master of the Senate” securing two important concessions from the White House: protections for mutual funds, “a major industry in Massachusetts” and the removal of billions taxes on large financial companies. It’s also become crystal clear that Brown (along with “the ladies from Maine,” Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins) has become an “unpredictable” power broker actively courted by Senate Democrats.
Brown’s other stunning accomplishment? “In a true feat of bipartisanship,” Bacon notes, “he has at times annoyed both conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).”
