In 1992, Corrine Brown was part of the first group of
African-American lawmakers to serve in the U.S. House
of Representatives from Florida since 1876. During her
congressional career, Brown worked to bring federal
programs to her Jacksonville district using her seats on
the Transportation and Infrastructure and the Veterans’
Affairs Committees. She also pushed civil rights reforms
both at home in Jacksonville and abroad. Brown believed
her mission in the House went beyond her history-making
election in 1992. “It means a lot more than the glamor of
being elected,” she once remarked. “Once you’re elected it
means getting things done. It means representing people
that have not been part of the process.”1
Corrine Brown was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on
November 11, 1946. She grew up in the city’s Northside
neighborhood and graduated from Stanton High
School. Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in 1969 and a
master’s degree in 1971, both from Florida Agriculture and
Mechanical University. In 1972, Brown graduated with an
educational specialist degree from the University of Florida.
She taught at the University of Florida and Edward Waters
College before moving to Florida Community College in
Jacksonville, where she taught and served as a guidance
counselor from 1977 to 1992. She also opened her own
travel agency in Jacksonville. Brown raised her daughter,
Shantrel, as a single mother.2
Brown was introduced to politics during her college years
at Florida A&M University. There she met Gwen Cherry,
the first African-American woman to serve in the state
house of representatives. Cherry was Brown’s close friend,
college sorority sister, and political mentor. Brown was also
inspired by campus politics. “The board of regents took two
or three programs, the nursing school and law school, from
FAMU,” she recollected. “That told me we needed to be
politically involved.” Three years after Cherry died in a car
accident, Brown won a seat in the Florida legislature and
served for a decade.3
In 1992, Brown made the jump from state politics and
ran for the U.S. House. No African-American candidate had
won election to Congress from Florida since Representative
Josiah T. Walls served during Reconstruction 115 years
earlier. During the redistricting process in the lead up to
the 1992 elections, Brown was one of several plaintiffs in
a federal lawsuit that accused state legislators of diluting
Black voters in majority-White districts. She testified in
favor of a map that would create several Black-majority
districts. When the legislature failed to agree on a map,
the court redrew the district lines. One of the new districts
was just over 50 percent Black and resembled a horseshoe
stretching from Jacksonville to Orlando and west through
Gainesville and Ocala. Having won the lawsuit, Brown filed
her candidacy to represent the northeastern Florida district,
which included her hometown.4
Brown faced stiff competition in the Democratic primary.
Her three challengers included Arnett Girardeau, a Black
state senator with 16 years’ experience; Orlando-based
school guidance counselor Glennie Mills; and the only
White candidate, talk show host Andy Johnson. Looking
to the grassroots, Brown branched out from Jacksonville
and crisscrossed the district. “I have really learned the
back roads,” she noted. Brown came in first in the primary
election, but since no candidate took a majority in the first
round of voting, Brown went to an October runoff where
she defeated Johnson.5
In the general election, Brown faced Republican Don
Weidner, general counsel for the Florida Physicians
Association. Her campaign promised to direct federal
resources to the district, fix the school system, bring jobs
to the area, and protect Social Security and Medicare.
On Election Day, Brown won by 18 percent of the vote.
She made history that fall alongside Alcee L. Hastings and
Carrie P. Meek as the first African-American lawmakers
elected from Florida since Reconstruction. Although Florida
changed her district borders four times, she generally won
re-election with 55 percent or more of the vote.6
When Brown took her seat in the 103rd Congress
(1993–1995), she received assignments to three committees:
Government Operations; Veterans’ Affairs; and Public
Works and Transportation. In the 104th Congress (1995–
1997), she stepped down from Government Operations.
She retained her seats on Public Works and Transportation
(later named Transportation and Infrastructure) and
Veterans’ Affairs for her entire career. Brown chaired
Transportation’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines,
and Hazardous Materials during the 110th and 111th
Congresses (2007–2011) and became ranking member of
Veterans’ Affairs in the 114th Congress (2015–2017).7
Not only was Brown one of the first Black women elected
from Florida, she was also part of a wave of Black lawmakers
elected in 1992 that increased the membership of the
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) from 26 to 40. Brown
was elected the CBC’s first vice chair in the 109th Congress
(2005–2007). The 1992 election cycle also saw huge growth
in the number of women in Congress, and Brown was an
active member of the Women’s Caucus as well.8
Brown’s main priority in Congress was to improve the
economy in northern Florida by steering federal aid to her
district. Using earmarks—the practice in which lawmakers
fund specific projects and programs using large discretionary
congressional spending bills—Brown led the effort to
construct an $86 million federal courthouse in Jacksonville.
She testified before the Transportation and Appropriations
Committees to secure federal dollars to repair the Fuller
Warren Bridge in Jacksonville, where Interstate 95 crossed
the St. John’s River. She later directed money to a new
mental health and rehabilitation center in Jacksonville
and funded a biofuel conversion project. Brown attributed
these successes to “hard work, persistence, and a thorough
understanding of the appropriations process.” When
Congress imposed a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th
Congress (2011–2013), Brown did not alter course. She
vowed “to continue what I have been doing every single day
since my first election in 1992, specifically bring home a fair
share of the federal dollars.”9
From her seat on the Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee, Brown fought to initiate Florida rail projects
to meet the state’s booming transportation needs. While
working on the 1998 surface transportation bill, she helped
orchestrate a nearly 60-percent increase in funding for
federal transportation programs back home. Throughout
her career, she frequently advocated for a robust Amtrak
budget. During debate over a 2006 appropriations bill,
Brown successfully incorporated an amendment that
ensured funding for 18 Amtrak routes across the country.
“If we do not fund Amtrak, we will leave 25 million people
waiting for a train that is not coming,” she said on the
House Floor. As chair of the Subcommittee on Railroads,
Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials, she worked with the
full committee’s chair, James Louis Oberstar of Minnesota,
to craft the Rail Safety Improvement Act, which provided
funding for computer-assisted train operation and placed
limits on work hours for rail employees, among other safety
improvements. It was signed into law in 2008. Brown also
frequently defended the CSX Corporation, a railway freight
company based in her district.10
Less than a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks,
Brown introduced the Port and Maritime Security Act
of 2001, which sought to improve security procedures
in the country’s seaports. As the top Democrat on the
Transportation Committee’s Subcommittee on Coast Guard
and Marine Transportation, she served on the conference
committee for a similar bill, the Maritime Transportation
Security Act, which became law in 2002.11
With a large military presence in her district, most
notably the Jacksonville Naval Air Station, Brown regularly
supported defense funding. Brown described the military
as a place where working-class Americans could find
opportunities unavailable elsewhere, and she wanted
more resources for personnel training. As a member of
the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, she was also attentive
to the needs of women veterans and veteran’s health care.
Brown sponsored bills strengthening infant and maternal
care, as well as legislation increasing access to breast cancer
treatment. In 2011, her bill to grant a Congressional Gold
Medal to the Montford Point Marines—the first African
Americans to serve in the Marine Corps—was signed into
law. She declared it to be “one of the proudest moments
I have ever experienced in all my years of service.”12
At times, Brown addressed issues far outside her
district. In 1993, shortly after arriving on Capitol Hill,
she worked with other Florida and CBC Members to push
the William J. Clinton administration to apply economic
pressure on Haiti to restore its democratic government
by re-installing deposed President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. Brown saw military force in Haiti as an option
of last resort, preferring to use foreign aid to encourage
change. She urged U.S. officials to offer political asylum
to thousands of Haitians who arrived in the United States
looking for help. Brown also took up the cause of Liberians,
pushing to extend temporary visa status for thousands who
came to America after a civil war in Liberia during the early
1990s. “It seems as if we have two policies, one for people
from Africa and Haiti and one for everybody else,” she
said. “Our policy pertaining to immigration is very racist
in nature.” In 2000, she gave an impassioned speech on the
House Floor imploring Congress to budget more money to
fight the global AIDS epidemic. “AIDS in Africa is a direct
threat to our country, especially in today’s interconnected
world,” she observed.13
Brown had an outspoken legislative style. In 2004,
Brown briefly lost her speaking privileges on the House
Floor when she accused Republicans of executing a “coup
d’état” and of stealing the contested 2000 presidential
election results in Florida. The House had her words taken
down, a parliamentary procedure invoked when a Member
has violated House decorum—in this case, accusing
another Member of a crime. The House also voted to have
her words stricken from the Congressional Record. Brown
remained unapologetic about the incident. “If they’re going
to take down my words for telling the truth, that’s OK,”
she responded.14
Although Brown ran into ethical and legal trouble
during her career, her constituents continued to return her
to office, and she ran unopposed in 2006 and 2008. As
she approached her primary election in 2016, however,
she faced two challenges. A state court ordered Florida to
redraw its districts after ruling that the existing borders
purposefully segregated minority voters into a single district.
Brown’s new district stretched east to west along the Georgia
border from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, and though it was
45 percent African-American, Brown lost much of her
traditional constituency along the St. John’s River. Secondly,
in July 2016, a grand jury charged Brown and her chief
of staff with 24 counts of mail and wire fraud, conspiracy,
obstruction, and filing false tax returns. The charges
stemmed from Brown’s tie to a charity which provided
scholarships to low-income students. The lawsuit alleged
that Brown and several associates siphoned off money to pay
for personal expenses.15
A few weeks after her indictment, Brown lost a three-way
race in the Democratic primary. On May 11, 2017, Brown
was convicted on 18 fraud and tax charges. She reported
to Coleman Federal Correctional Institute in Sumter
County, Florida, on January 29, 2018, to begin a five-year
sentence. Two years later, Brown was released from prison
after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 7,
2021, a federal appeals court, citing a trial error, overturned
her conviction and ordered a new trial.16
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