James R. Brewster is an American politician who has served as a member of the

Pennsylvania Senate The Pennsylvania State Senate is the upper house of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania state legislature. The State Senate meets in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. Senators are elected for four year terms, staggered ...

for the 45th District since 2010.

Education

Brewster earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in education from the California University of Pennsylvania.

Career

Brewster is a former vice president for fraud management with

Mellon Bank Mellon Financial Corporation was an investment firm which was once one of the world's largest money management firms. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it was in the business of institutional and high-net-worth individual asset management, incl ...

and mayor of McKeesport, Pennsylvania. On November 2, 2010, Brewster won a

special election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

to fill the remaining term of Senator Sean F. Logan, who had resigned his seat on August 24, 2010, to take a position at the

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is a $23billion integrated global nonprofit health enterprise that has 92,000 employees, 40 hospitals with more than 8,000 licensed beds, 800 clinical locations including outpatient sites and d ...

. Brewster was sworn into the Pennsylvania Senate on November 17, 2010. In July 2020, Brewster organized a meeting with bar and restaurant owners and signed a letter to Governor

Tom Wolf Thomas Westerman Wolf (born November 17, 1948) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 47th governor of Pennsylvania since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he defeated Republican incumbent Tom Corbett in the 2014 gu ...

urging him to lessen the restrictions on them imposed during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

2020 election

In January 2021, although Brewster narrowly defeated his opponent, Republican Nicole Ziccarelli, by 69 votes, the Republican-led State Senate refused to swear in Brewster for his fourth term, despite the fact that his win had already been certified by state officials. Lieutenant Governor

John Fetterman John Karl Fetterman (born August 15, 1969) is an American politician who is the United States senator-elect from Pennsylvania. A member of the Democratic Party, he has also served as the 34th lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania since 2019. Fe ...

attempted to swear Brewster in. In a bizarre move, Republican leaders voted to remove Fetterman from his presiding role and halt Brewster's seating. Senator

Jake Corman Jacob Doyle Corman III (born September 9, 1964) is an American politician and former President pro tempore of the Pennsylvania Senate. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Senate 1999 to 2022, holding the same seat his father, Doyle Corman, pre ...

, when reading out names of the new and re-elected senators, intentionally omitted Brewster's, with Republicans once again voting to confirm the disruptive action. After a federal court ruling re-affirmed his win over Ziccarelli, Brewster was sworn in on January 13, 2021.

References

External links

Pennsylvania Senate - Jim Brewster

Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Caucus - Jim Brewster
Living people Democratic Party Pennsylvania state senators Politicians from Pittsburgh 21st-century American politicians Year of birth missing (living people) {{Pennsylvania-PASenate-stub