Nevada Republican Sam Brown has ties to extremist who compared abortion to slavery

Ralph Reed, founder of the anti-abortion group the Faith and Freedom Coalition, compared abortion to slavery in a June 5 interview with the Washington Post. The remarks are bringing unwanted attention to U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown, who once held a leadership position in the same organization.

Brown secured the Republican nomination in Nevada’s senate race on June 11. He will face incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in November. 

Abortion rights are expected to play a major role in the race. Opposition to abortion bans is credited with helping Democrats win in recent elections. A Nevada Independent poll from April showed 62% of Nevadans support codifying abortion rights into their state constitution. 

Reed made his remarks in response to a question about whether Republicans should push for a national abortion ban in their 2024 platform.

“[The Republican Party] was really founded as a third party in order to right a wrong, in order to ameliorate an evil, in order to eliminate from our national life what was a collective and national sin. And that was slavery and racism,” Reed said. “We believe that the taking of innocent human life in their mother’s womb is equally a national sin and equally morally wrong.”

Brown previously ran for senate in 2022 but failed to advance past the Republican primary. Following that election, he was named President and Chairman of the Nevada Faith and Freedom Coalition, the official state chapter of the national Faith and Freedom Coalition. The group advocates for policies that are in line with an evangelical worldview. They have backed state level abortion bans across the country.

Brown did not include his work with the Faith and Freedom Coalition on his personal financial disclosure report. In an October 2023 statement to the Las Vegas Sun, a Brown spokesperson claimed Brown was not compensated for the work.

“Sam has not done any work with the Nevada Faith and Freedom Coalition since May 2023, well before his campaign launch,” the spokesperson said. “Sam resigned from his position and we asked that he be removed from their website. It was strictly a volunteer position.”

Despite this assertion, Senate rules require candidates to report all official positions held, both compensated and uncompensated, in the two years preceding their candidacy. When Brown amended his financial disclosures, he said he left the Nevada Faith and Freedom Coalition in October 2023, five months later than his campaign initially claimed.

That same month, all mentions of Brown were scrubbed from the Nevada Faith and Freedom Coalition’s website.

The Nevada Faith and Freedom Coalition was founded by Lance Lemmonds, who previously served as communications director for the national branch of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Lemmonds is now the proprietor of a super PAC supporting Brown’s candidacy.

A Brown spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions for this story.