WASHINGTON, D.C. – Since launching his first U.S. Senate campaign in 2006, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown has accepted at least $13,000 in campaign donations from political action committees tied to health insurance and pharmacy benefit management companies that are now being sued by the state of Ohio for allegedly illegally driving up drug prices, according to a review by Spectrum News.

What You Need To Know

  • A Spectrum News review of campaign finance records shows Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has accepted at least $13,000 in campaign donations throughout his career from PACs tied to health insurance and pharmacy benefit management companies that are now being sued by the state of Ohio

  • Brown has also received over $37,000 from lobbyists affiliated with the companies

  • Brown, a member of the Senate since 2007, is running for a fourth six-year term in 2024
  • His campaign tells Spectrum News that Brown’s record shows repeated legislative efforts and victories in lowering the cost of prescription drugs

In addition, Brown has also collected over $37,000 from lobbyists affiliated with the companies, records show. The lobbyists are not cited in the Ohio lawsuit.

Brown, a Democratic populist who is running for reelection next year, often rails against lobbyists affiliated with large corporations and special interest groups in committee hearings, statements, interviews, and speeches.

A review of campaign finance records shows that, from 2009 to 2018, Brown’s campaign arm received $13,000 from political action committees affiliated with health insurance companies Cigna and Humana, and pharmacy benefit management company Express Scripts. The PACs donate hundreds of thousands of dollars each campaign cycle to lawmakers in both parties, according to campaign finance records compiled by the nonpartisan watchdog group OpenSecrets.

From 2006 to 2021, Brown’s political committees also received $19,920 in donations from lobbyists who worked for Cigna. Lobbyists for Humana gave $14,250 from 2007 to January of this year, and the director of government affairs for Express Scripts gave $3,500 in 2018. 

The donations from both the PACs and lobbyists were made to Brown’s formal campaign committee, “Friends of Sherrod Brown,” or his leadership PAC, “America Works PAC.”

Combined, the contributions add up to over $50,000 – a fraction of the $76 million Brown has raised since he first began running for Congress in 1992, according to OpenSecrets. 

In March 2023, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit against Express Scripts and Prime Therapeutics, accusing them “of using a little-known, Switzerland-based company to illegally drive up drug prices and ultimately push those higher costs onto patients who rely on lifesaving drugs such as insulin.” Yost listed as co-defendants in the suit Cigna Group, Evernorth Health, and Humana. 

On March 30, days after the suit was filed, Brown mentioned the litigation during a Senate Finance Committee hearing about “Pharmacy Benefit Managers and the Prescription Drug Supply Chain: Impact on Patients and Taxpayers.”

“Early this week, we sued one of the mysterious group purchasing organizations (GPOs) that are owned by PBMs and used to take dollars from the pockets of people who simply need their medications. It’s unacceptable that these shadowy, secretive entities have so much power over people’s health care,” he said.

Days later, in a statement released on April 4 as he introduced a bill to lower drug costs, Brown said: “After years of fighting opposition from Big Pharma, and the politicians who always do their lobbyists’ bidding, we finally made progress with the Inflation Reduction Act. This legislation builds on those wins to hold drug companies accountable for their price gouging and lower prices at the pharmacy counter.”

And last August, he tweeted, “For years we fought to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. Big Pharma lobbyists fought us every step of the way. In the #InflationReductionAct, we’re finally getting it done.”

In a statement to Spectrum News, Brown’s campaign manager Rachel Petri said, “No one has fought harder to lower the costs of prescription drugs for Ohioans and hold Big Pharma accountable for putting profits ahead of people than Sherrod Brown.”

Brown’s campaign pointed out that he helped secure a provision in the sweeping health care and environmental bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act to help the government negotiate lower drug prices and cap the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 per month for Ohioans on Medicare.

The campaign also listed several pieces of legislation Brown has introduced or sponsored to lower drug costs, including the Strengthening Medicare and Reducing Taxpayers (SMART) Prices Act, the Affordable Medications Act, the Stop Price Gouging Act, and two bills former President Donald Trump signed into law: the Patient Right to Know Act and the Know the Lowest Price Act.

Brown has served in Congress since 1993 and worked in Ohio state government for 16 years before that. He is seeking a fourth term in the Senate in a race that is expected to be the toughest of his career. He is the only Democrat to hold a non-judicial statewide elected office in Ohio, and Republicans view his seat as a pick-up opportunity to regain control of the Senate.

So far, Republicans Matt Dolan, a state senator, and Bernie Moreno, a Cleveland businessman, have announced campaigns to take on Brown. 

Dolan reported owning between $15,000 and $50,000 in Cigna stock in a 2022 financial disclosure report, while Moreno has called for the Inflation Reduction Act to be repealed.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and U.S. Representative Warren Davidson are also considering entering the race.